1911 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
263 
A CROP OF ONION SEED. 
The picture, Fig. 83, shows a field 
of onion seed grown from selected bulbs 
by I. A. McCoy, formerly an extensive 
market gardener and seed grower of this 
locality. Mr. McCoy recently removed 
to Virginia, where he is still engaged in 
seed growing. The bulbs intended to 
produce seed arc carefully selected for 
uniformity as to shape, color and size, 
and stored in a dry place over Winter. 
In the Spring the bulbs are set out in 
well prepared soil, which should be rich 
and mellow, but not too rich in nitrogen 
as the blossoms will “blast” and but 
little seed be produced. The soil in the 
field shown in the picture is a sandy 
loam somewhat alluvial in character, 
and well adapted to onions. When the 
seed heads are ripe the crop is harvested 
and dried under cover, when the seed 
may be thrashed and cleaned with a 
fanning mill. A crop of onion seed re¬ 
quires much hand work, setting out the 
bulbs and harvesting the seed, but it is 
usually a profitable one. Mr. McCoy at 
first grew his seed for a seed firm but 
later sold direct to the planters with 
greater satisfaction. He sold to the 
same customers year after year, so his 
spread with red, instead of the striped 
fruit of the common type. Several in¬ 
stances are known where the Graven- 
stein has developed sports of this kind. 
Some of these have never been described 
nor propagated. Others of them have 
been introduced into cultivation under 
distinct names. Leroy, in his Diction- 
naire de Pomologie, published in Paris 
in 1873, describes a sport of this kind. 
Gaucher in his Pomologie der Prakti- 
schen Obstbaumzuchters, published in 
Stuttgart in 1894, also describes a Red 
Gravenstein. The writer in his “Report 
on the Apples of New York,” published 
at Albany in 1905, gives a description of 
the Banks apple, which is a red sport 
of the Gravenstein. The Banks has 
been quite largely planted in commercial 
orchards in the Annapolis Valley in No¬ 
va Scotia. s. A. BEACH. 
Ames, Iowa. 
Spring Cultivation for Strawberries. 
Should strawberries be cultivated in May 
and .Tune before fruiting? Will you stim¬ 
ulate leaf growth too much, and get softer 
berries? My land is not very rich, straw¬ 
berries ripen here in July, and we are sub¬ 
ject to dry spells at about that time. I lost 
nearly my whole crop last Summer for lack 
of rain. The general opinion among growers 
here is that fruiting fields should be mulched 
and not cultivated until after picking time. 
I could conserve moisture by cultivation and 
keep down grass and clover, which are our 
worst weeds here. I have 18 acres of 
strawberries; if I could raise 100 cases more 
A CROP OF ONION SEED. Fig. 83. 
seed must have been good and true to 
name. This man made a specialty of 
a selected strain of Yellow Globe 
Danvers onion, and no doubt he de¬ 
served the success he attained with this 
seed crop both in growing and selling. 
Highland Co., O. w. e. duckwall. 
ANOTHER RED GRAVENSTEIN APPLE. 
A new sport of the Gravenstein apple 
has appeared in the Pacific Northwest. 
It is being disseminated under the name 
Red Gravenstein. It originated at Olga, 
Washington, on Orcas Island, one of the 
San Juan group in Puget Sound. In a 
certain 10-acre Olga orchard stand 50 
Gravenstein trees, which have been in 
bearing about 10 years. On one of 
these trees a limb has grown out from 
the main trunk about three feet from 
the ground, which from the time the tree 
first commenced to bear has produced red 
apples instead of the striped fruit of 
the common type of the Gravenstein. 
These red apples borne by the sporting 
limb are either completely covered with 
red or show more or less of the yellow¬ 
ish or orange yellow background where 
the red fails wholly to overspread the 
fruit, but they are not striped. In form, 
flavor and other qualities than color the 
sport is like the Gravenstein. The 
owners state that it is a better bearer 
and a better keeper. Whether it will 
prove to be so generally in other lo¬ 
calities can be determined only by trial. 
Fruit of this sport which was exhibited 
at the National Apple Show in Spokane 
last November, certainly showed excel¬ 
lent keeping qualities for Gravensteins. 
This sport clearly has an advantage over 
the common Gravenstein in its superior 
color, and for this reason it will doubt¬ 
less be recognized at once by commercial 
orchardists as being more valuable. 
The pravenstein, like the Twenty 
Ounce, is a variety which shows a ten¬ 
dency to develop bud sports, which pro¬ 
duce self-colored fruit more or less over- 
per acre by cultivation, it would mean a 
great deal to me. • c. v. 
Bayfield, Wis. 
We believe in Spring cultivation for 
strawberries. We would give the soil a 
thorough cultivation once, not deep, but 
over the entire surface not covered by the 
plants. It accomplishes just what you say 
it does. It stimulates plant growth, and 
this is just what we want. If the plants 
are left to themselves, they do not make 
enough growth to carry through the crop of 
fruit, aud easily succumb to disease. It 
certainly has a tendency to make larger 
fruit, and therefore softer fruit. But we 
find that while in some seasons the fruit 
will be too soft, there are more dry than 
wet seasons; and in a term of 20 years you 
will get more benefit by stirring the soil 
in Spring than by letting it remain un¬ 
touched. I should remove the mulch, cul¬ 
tivate, and then put the mulch right back 
to save the moisture aud keep the fruit 
clean. L. J. farmer. 
New York. 
I never practice Spring cultivation. I 
always mulch quite heavily, and I prefer 
not to disturb the mulch. 1 do not work for 
early berries, and I want to keep the soil 
as cool and moist as possible. If I wanted 
early berries I would remove the mulch and 
cultivate till nearly blossoming time, and 
then replace the mulch. That would loosen 
and warm the soil, and in some kinds of 
soil, might improve tlu- moisture retaining 
properties. Removing the mulch, cultiva¬ 
tion aud replacing the mulch adds quite an 
item to the expense, and on my soil is of 
no benefit. E. c. gillett. 
New York. 
I practiced cultivating strawberries in 
the Spring several years ago, even taking 
the trouble of taking the mulch off and 
then putting it back again. If the ground 
dries off early in the Spring and becomes 
weedy, I would think it would be a good 
thing to cultivate, although expensive. For 
the last few years my ground dried off so 
slowly that I just went through and pulled 
out the weeds. t. r. hunt. 
New Jersey. 
It does not pay except to kill weeds, and 
there ought not to be weeds to kill if the 
beds are handled right in the Fall before. 
Connecticut. j. c. eddy. 
My experience with the strawberry plant 
is not to cultivate in the Spring. You 
cannot cultivate the soil but what you will 
destroy more or less a large number of the 
fine fibrous roots that start to grow very 
early in the Spring. A strawberry plant in 
the Spring is composed of several long 
tap-roots; it is from these tap-roots that 
the feeding roots start. If you will observe 
in early March you will find these fine roots 
working through the soil, and very often 
you will find them near the surface. 
New Jersey. t. c. kevitt. 
R. N.-Y.—In our own practice we do not 
cultivate in Spring. Winter usually leaves 
the soil well filled with moisture. The ber¬ 
ries are mulched. By raking the mulch 
away from the plants, between the rows, 
this moisture is held in the soil. This is 
for fruiting beds. For Fall-set hill plants 
which would not give much fruit anyway 
we cultivate. 
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