1908. 
DISCUSSION OF AN ONION FAILURE 
A Hard Fight and a Poor Season. 
It is a little more than a year since I wrote you, 
describing an acre of ground on which I expected to 
grow that “banner” onion crop. Some of your read¬ 
ers evidently remember that article, and are asking 
me to report what success I have had: I am com¬ 
pelled to report almost a total failure- Probably you 
remember that the land prepared to sow to onions 
was a young clover sod, from which we had taken 
the first crop of clover hay. Immediately after we 
top-dressed the stubble with a heavy coating of well- 
rotted stable manure. We had a good rain following 
this treatment, which brought forth a big crop of 
second clover, which when in full bloom was broken 
down by driving over it with a heavy plank drag; a 
third growth struggled up through this mass, all of 
which we turned under just before Winter set in. 
I he above I believe an ideal foundation for a big onion 
crop, and I was really justified in my expectation of 
it. Under ordinary weather conditions following the 
above treatment we should have found the ground in 
Spring very mellow and porous, owing to freezing 
and thawing during Winter and the large amount of 
vegetable matter turned down, but during early 
Spring and late into the season we had almost daily 
rains; great heavy torrential downpours, and though 
this portion of the lot was drained both 
naturally and artificially, we were unable 
to get on to it until the first week in 
May, and even then it was hardly fit 
to work. However, we preoared the 
ground in a way; while at work some 
black clouds were forming in the 
southwest, and therefore we started to 
sow seed in poorer prepared ground 
than I ever did before. When about 
one-fourth of the land was sown the 
storm broke over my head in torrents, 
driving me under shelter in double- 
quick time. It was three weeks before 
we could get on to this ground again, 
and of course too late for onions for 
that season. 
The seed that was in the ground came 
up and made an effort to grow, but the 
ground was packed so hard, owing to 
those heavy rains, that with all our 
efforts to loosen it up and give those 
struggling seedlings a chance, we failed 
to accomplish it- However, other people 
had no better success, and as a result 
there was an actual scarcity of garden 
truck of all kinds, and we could sell 
green onions all Summer at more than 
double the usual prices. In this way 
that fourth of an acre netted us more 
clear cash than any onion patch of the 
same size before; the onions made just 
nice bunching stock, but would never 
have made bulbs of marketable size. 
Some of your readers also want to 
know which of the two methods I con¬ 
sider the more profitable, sowing the 
seed in open ground, or under glass, 
transplanting the seedlings. All con¬ 
ditions being equal, nine-tenths will 
make the most money sowing seed in 
open ground. I have grown onions 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
growing those seedlings under glass is considerable 
of a job, and expensive, too. 
As to the work of thinning, with us this is a profit¬ 
able operation. We sow the seed quite thickly, and 
when the plants get as big as a large lead pencil we 
start to pull and “bunch up” these small onions and 
market them all the way from 15 to 30 cents a bunch 
of 36 small onions. This we keep up until the crop 
is well thinned; the remainder we let grow to matur¬ 
ity. We make more money with less expense grow¬ 
ing onions in this way, unless we have the genuine 
Prizetaker, which we can sell in competition with the 
large Spanish onions above mentioned and at the 
same price. When I first commenced to grow onions 
I devoured considerable onion literature; most of the 
writers advised to grow onions on the same ground 
year after year, and never let a weed go to seed. 
They argued that this method would clear the land 
of weeds in a short time, reducing labor of weeding 
very materially. In theory this seems correct, but 
in practice I found that my ground got worse every 
year. This may be, however, that the same enemy 
of whom we read in Scripture, who sowed tares 
among the good wheat, while the men slept, got in 
his work on the onion ground. Of late years, how¬ 
ever, we sow our seed on a clover sod every Spring; 
this reduces the expense of growing a crop of onions 
A FINE EASTER LILY. MUCH REDUCED IN SIZE. Fig. 1S3. 
See Ruralisms, Page 432. 
both ways, and have now seedlings 
growing under glass, but the only ad¬ 
vantage in practicing the new method 
'' - ou can S low larger onions. This really is considerably, and we get larger and finer onions 
no advantage, unless you have the genuine, true-to- generally. j. H . bollinger. 
name Prizetaker seed from which you can grow a Ohio. 
large, fine, straw-colored bulb, the equal of the - 
Spanish onion sold at grocery stores at five cents per 
pound. Such I have now growing, seed of my own 
growing from selected bulbs of the finest and most 
perfect strain. An overgrown large onion of any 
other variety is not wanted for culinary uses; a 
medium size fills the bill better. The advocates of the 
new onion culture claim that it is no more work to 
grow onions by the new method than it is to sow 
seed direct in the open ground; they argue that the 
first weeding and thinning will readily offset the work 
of planting the small seedlings, but only those who 
have set out hundreds of thousands of those little 
onion plants realize fully what a job it is- True, the 
first weeding is considerable work, but this we have 
i educed to a minimum. Sowing the seed very early 
"u a highly enriched Fall-plowed clover sod, onion 
se °d w ’ll sprout and grow when the ground is quite 
cold, and will get the start of the weeds; most of 
them will not sprout until the ground becomes warm, 
and if taken at the right time that first weeding is no 
longer the nightmare it used to be. Then you know 
that any crop growing on a newly-turned sod is 
much easier kept clean than the second and third 
>ear. But this is not all there is to the new method - 
CAN WE GET BALDWIN APPLES THE ODD 
YEAR? 
In the last annual report of the Rhode Island 
Agricultural Experiment Station a test was made in 
which scions from three or four different sources, 
and' each scion taken from an odd-year Baldwin tree, 
were grafted in both large and small trees to see if 
these scions would continue their habit of bearing 
fruit the same as did the trees from which they were 
taken. 1 hese young trees have not yet come into 
bearing, while the grafts set in the old trees seem not 
to have been tested long enough yet to prove much of 
anything cither way; only one graft bore fruit of any 
amount (in 1905), and that graft had been injured, 
which fact might easily account for its crop of fruit. 
But it is noticeable that none of the grafts bore at 
all in 1906. My father has experimented somewhat in 
this line, and hence I have something of value to refer 
to. We always cut nearly all our Baldwin scions 
from odd-year trees, the only exception being when 
some specially large or beautiful apples are borne on 
even-year trees. Some years ago a man in the town 
told of a very fine strain of Baldwin that bore fruit 
*419 
every odd year—this lie called the Spitzenburg Bald¬ 
win. We got some scions, which were grafted in a 
young seedling tree. That tree is now old and past 
its prime, and it has always borne apples the odd 
year until within a few years. Another man, well 
known by my family, claimed to have quite a good 
many odd-year Baldwins. Grafts were procured from 
these trees also, and we now have several large trees 
which with very few exceptions have borne the odd 
year. All these trees proved to be genuine Baldwins, 
just like any other Baldwins except that they fruited 
the odd year. But recently both our trees and those 
of the second man from whom we procured the scions, 
seem to have lost their reckoning, in other words 
they bear some apples the even year and sometimes 
very few the off year. I think this can be easily 
accounted for in this way: Last year quite a few of 
our trees bloomed, but because of frost or other 
weather conditions there were almost no apples. 
This would naturally cause those same trees to 
bloom again the present year. I am told that the 
trees belonging to the man from whom we had our 
scions are coming back again to bear the odd year as 
formerly. It is noticeable that at least a part of 
our trees recently grafted show signs of bearing the 
odd year. One of these little trees bore full in 1907. 
I believe that by selection of scions at least some 
trees can be brought to bear the odd 
year. a. f. tenny. 
Essex Co., Mass- 
APPLE PACKING FOR PROFIT. 
We were quite a little amused at the 
illustration of those Baldwin apples and 
your comments on the same. What 
are the facts in the case? In our 
northern markets strictly No. 1 Bald¬ 
wins could not have been bought at 
$3.45 at wholesale any time this sea¬ 
son, and mixed apples were bought at 
even higher prices to ship abroad last 
hall before the slump in prices. We 
also know a man whose Baldwins have 
sold, No. 1, at $4.50, at Boston, through 
the Winter at wholesale, viz. com¬ 
mission house returned that as selling 
price. We live near a city of from 
35,000 to 40,000 people, and we can sell 
little fruit there which must sell at over 
50 cents per peck, at the stores, retail. 
So all our strictly fancy fruit goes to 
Boston, and many times we receive re¬ 
turns that must make the selling price 
from 75 cents to $1 per peck to give the 
buyer a fair profit. Another thing 
people do not take into account is that 
after apples or other fruit has been 
kept and shipped many miles even the 
raiser would not know his own fruit. 
We have no doubt that after the aver¬ 
age fruit put up by the editor’s hired 
help had “set around” a New York 
market a few days, an illustration un¬ 
der his name would be an injustice to 
him if the poorest samples in the pack¬ 
age were used. There is a big cry for 
strictly fancy fruit by people who do not 
wish to pay what such fruit would cost, 
and now practically all such fruit is sold 
in our large cities- A man who would 
ship apples must send such as can be 
sold at a profit in that market. I be¬ 
lieve that for the small grower, and also the buyer 
who is not willing to pay high prices, the present 
cheap handling of what is known as mixed grade, 
Nos. 1 and 2, is best for both; that it is better to use 
such fruit than have people refuse to buy because 
fruit is so high they could not afford it. It is only 
by very slow and careful packing by skilled help that 
any receiver of apples could guarantee that there 
should be no poor specimens in a barrel of apples. 
Massachusetts. h. o. mead. 
R- N.-Y.—Mr. Mead never put any such apples as 
we pictured in his packages. Tf he had done so he 
would not have marked them “Choice Baldwins.” It 
is true that any apple may look more like a batter 
cake than like choice fruit after it has hung about 
the markets awhile, but these five scabby “Choice 
Baldwins” weighed only ounces, and there were 
plenty more like them in the barrel! 
A large number of new egg dealers seem to be 
appealing to farmers at this season. Many of them 
appear to be small grocers who think they can get a 
supply of cheap, eggs by posing as regular dealers, so 
they send out circulars—in some cases offering prices 
above the usual market quotation as a bait. Some of 
them are honest, and might be able to handle a 
limited number of eggs to advantage. Others are 
simply after the eggs. We advise readers not to ship 
to these new men without an investigation. We can 
usually help shippers in this line. 
