HOW TO GROW ONIONS 
Plant % oz. to 100 feet of drill, three to five pounds per acre, except 
Sweet Spanish and like sorts, Z to 2%. For sets, forty 
to eighty pounds per acre. 
In onion culture, thorough preparation of the ground, careful sow¬ 
ing and the best of after-culture, though essential for a full yield, will 
avail nothing unless seed of the best quality be used. Given the same 
care and conditions, the product from two lots of onion seed of the 
same variety but of different quality may be so unequal in the quantity 
of merchantable onions that it would be more profitable to use the good 
seed though it cost twenty times as much as the other. The seed we 
offer is the best obtainable. Although onions are often raised froin sets 
and from division, by far the best and cheapest mode of production is 
from seed. The facility with which seed is sown and the superior 
bulbs it produces recommend it for general use. 
THE SOIL A crop of onions can be grown on any soil which will pro¬ 
duce a full crop of corn, but on a stiff clay, very light sand 
or gravel, or on some muck or swamp lands, neither a 
large nor a very profitable crop can be grown. I prefer a rich loam 
with a slight mixture of clay. This is much better if it has been culti¬ 
vated with hoed crops, kept clean from weeds and well-manured for 
two years previous, because if a sufficient quantity of manure to raise 
an ordinary soil to a proper degree of fertility is applied at once, it is 
likely to make the onion soft. The same result will follow if we sow 
on rank, mucky ground or on that which is too wet. 
MANURING There is no crop in which a liberal use of manure is 
more essential than in this, and it should be the best 
quality, well fermented and shoveled over at least twibe 
during the previous summer to kill weed seeds. If rank, fresh manure 
is used, it is liable to result in soft bulbs with many scallions. Of 
the commercial manures, any of the high-grade, complete fertilizers 
are good for ordinary soils, and even very rich soils are frequently 
greatly benefited by fine ground bone, and mucky ones by a liberal 
dressing of wood ashes. 
PREPARATION We suggest that you refer to page 2 for preparation 
of the soil. 
SOWING THE This should be done as soon as the ground can be 
made ready. A good hand seed drill will do an ex- 
SEED cellent job of planting. Growers of large acreages here 
plant with the 4 row beet drills, using special plates. 
This permits cultivating with 4 row culivators. The drill should be 
carefully adjusted to sow the desired quantity of seed about one inch 
deep. The quantity needed will vary with the soil, the seed used and 
the kind of onions desired. Thin seeding gives much larger onions 
than thick seeding. Two to two and one-fourth pounds of seed per 
acre is sufficient for very large sorts like Sweet Spanish and as much 
as five or six pounds per acre can be sown of the smaller sorts. Use 
a drill with a roller attached, but if the drill has none, the ground 
should be well rolled with a light roller immediately after the seed 
is planted. It is impossible to cultivate the crop economically unless 
the rows are straight. 
Topping Burrell’s Yellow Valencia Onions and Placing Them in Field Crates. 
56 
D. V. Burrell Seed Growers Co., Rocky Ford, Colo 
