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ONION. 
not be delayed longer than the middle of April. The seed 
may be sown moderately thick, in drills one inch deep and 
twelve inches apart.* 
r Ihose who cultivate Onions for the sake of their bulbs, 
may use at the rate of four or five pounds of seed per acre. 
As market gardeners, in the vicinity of large cities, find it 
most profitable to pull a great proportion of their Onions 
while young, they generally require at the rate of from eight 
to ten pounds of seed to an acre of land. 
When the plants are up strong, they should be hoed. Those 
beds that are to stand for ripening, should be thinned out while 
young, to the distance of two or three inches from each other. 
If a few should be required for use after this, those can be 
taken which incline more to tops than roots ; and if the beds 
be frequently looked over, and the small and stalky plants 
taken away where they stand thickest, the remaining bulbs 
will grow to a larger size. The plants should be hoed at least 
ihree times in the early part of their growth; but if the season 
prove damp, and weeds vegetate luxuriantly,, they must be 
removed by the hand, because after the Onions have begun to 
bulb, it would injure them to stir them with a hoe. 
When the greenness is gone out of the tops of Onions, it 
is time to take them up ; for from this time the fibrous roots 
decay. After they are pulled, they should be laid out to dry, 
and when dry, removed to a place of shelter. 
The small Onions may be planted in the following spring. 
Even an Onion which is partly rotten will produce good bulbs, 
if the seed stems be taken off as soon as they appear. 
* Onion seed may be sown at any time from March to September, but 
those only can be depended upon for ripening, which are sown in the first 
and second spring months. It is a singular fact, that Onions will not ripen 
later than August or the early part of September, however warm the 
weather may be ; they can, however, be preserved in the place where they 
grow, by spreading some short dung over them in autumn, *just sufficient 
to prevent their purging out of the ground in winter. Onions thus pre- 
served, often prove more profitable to market gardeners in the spring, than 
crops which ripen ; because ripe Onions are then scarce, and green ones 
nrove a good substitute for Shallots, Welsh Onions, Leeks, &c. 
