The Cultivation of Onions and Irish Po
tatoes. I have plowed in fifty lgads of good stable ma
nure on two acres of land which I want to plant
in onions. Will it require more manure? Please
give best time and method of cultivation; also,
whether to plant seed or sets. What is the
best way to grow and cultivate Irish potatoes?
Is commercial fertilizers as good as stable ma
nure? R. P. R., Newton, N. C.
(Answered by W. F. Massey. Horticulturist, N.
C. Experiment Station.)
It is hard to grow a first-class crop of
onions on land that has not been culti
vated in vegetables and heavily ma
nured for some years before. You do
not say anything about the previous
quality of your land, nor what kind of
loads of manure you applied, nor the
quality of the -manure. Manure from
highly fed animals and not of too strong
a character is a very different article
from ordinary yard manure. Fifty or
dinary loads of ordinary manure on on
dinary farm land will not grow a fine
crop of onions particularly if the land
is of a clayey character, You cannot
make land too rich for onions. On the
land you name we would advise the
addition of not less than 700 to l.();K)
pounds of a complete commercial fer
tilizer, such as is made for tobacco
growing, in the furrow under the onion
rows. If you intend to grow ripe on
ions you should always sow the seed
in February, as you can thus raise
better onions than you can from sets.
