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, 134 to 2!'/. For 
sets, forty to eighty pounds per acre. 
In Onion culture, thorough preparation of the ground, care- 
ful 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 obtainable. Although onions are often 
raised from sets and from division, by far the best and cheap- 
est 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 cultivated 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 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 com- 
mercial manures, any of the high-grade, complete fertilizers 
are good for ordinary soils, and even very rich soils are fre- 
quently greatly benefited by fine ground bone, and mucky ones 
by a liberal dressing of wood ashes. 


Topping Burrell’s Yellow Valencia Onions and Placing Them 
in Field Crates. 
PREPARATION 
Refer to page 3 for preparation of the soil. 
SOWING THE SEED 
This should be done as soon as the ground can be made 
ready. A good hand seed drill will do an excellent job of plant- 
ing. 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 quan- 
tity 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 cul- 
tivate the crop economically unless the rows are straight. 12 
seeds planted per foot of row requires about 1% lbs. per acre. 
See page 90 for Special Prices to Market Growers 53 
