HOW TO GROW ONIONS 
Plant 1/3 oz. to 100 feet of drill, three to five pounds per acre, except 
Sweet Spanish and like sorts, 2 to 21 / 2 - For sets, forty 
to eighty pounds per acre. 
In onion culture, thorough preparation of the ground, careful sowing 
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 obtain¬ 
able. Although onions are often raised from 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 produce a full 
crop of com, but on a stiff clay, very light sand or gravel, or on some 
muck or swamp lands, neither a large nor a very proHtable crop can be 
grown. I prefer a rich loam with a slight mixture of clay. This is much 
better if it has been cultivated with hoed crops, kept clean from weeds and 
well-manured for two years previous, because if a sufficient quantity of 
manure to raise on 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 twice 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 3 for preparation of the soil. 
SOWING THE SEED 
This should be done as soon as the ground con be made ready. A 
good hand seed drill will do an excellent job of planting. Growers of 
large acreages here plant with the 4 row beet drills, using special plates. 
This permits cultivating with 4 row cultivators. 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 imless the rows are straight. 
60 
D. V. Burrell Seed Growers Co., Rocky Ford, Colo. 
