Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — Onions. [ARTICLE]

Onions.

As almost all farmers grow onions for family use, and a great many also grow' them for market, a few hints in regard to the best methods of their culture may not be out of place. From an experience ot several years, combined with considerable reading and observation, I am convinced that the following are among the requisites for the successful culture ot this Crop. Good land must be selected and it must be well manured. Ashes furnish one of the best fertilizers for this crop, and they should be liberally applied before the seed is sown. In order to arrive at anything like perfection, onions require a great deal of plant food, and it is impossible to raise a good crop on poor land. The land should be plowed not deeper than five or six inches. A heavy coat of manure should be plowed in and the soil thoroughly pulverized. The ashes should be harrowed in, the lumps ot dirt broken up, and if there are any stones they should be removed. I fit ray onion land as well as I do my flower beds, and it pays me well to do it. But very little onion seed that is two years old will grow. Consequently it is'of great importance to obtain good and fresh seed. I lost my crop one year by having poor eeed. • Bow the seed early. This is imperative. It is useless to sow onion seed late, tor if this is done the crop will inevitably be small and poor. Just as soon as the frost is well out of the ground the land should be fitted and the seed put in. The seed and plants are hardy, and a few cold nights will not injure them at all. Cultivate thoroughly. A neglected onion-bed is as unprofitable as a half-starved horse. Just as so«n as the weeds show themselyfe above ground, a relentless war for their exterraination should be commenced, and the crop should be well cultivated all through the season. When the on ions are ripe the tops will fal 1 over and turn brown. Then they should bepulled, for if allowed to stand they will soon begin to grow again, and in a shor| time they will be utterly spoiled. After being pulled they should lie in the sun two qr three days. Then the tops should be cut off and the onions stored in a dry, cool place until cold weather, when they should be put in a cellar where they wifi not freeze, Tb.is-.c-rop should be grown on the same land year after year. This because it is a great deal easier fitting the land, and also because the onion is one of the very 1 few crops which do a great deal better upon land on which they have been long cultivated than they do on new fields.—OZtio Wwwr, Dallas, Tex., shipped over 49,000 bales of cotton last year.