ONION CULTURE IN OTAGO.

Lake County Press, Issue 2669, 15 February 1917, Page 5

ONION CULTURE IN OTAGO.

Room for Development. Brown Spanish onions are being grown in <Viitral Otago with groat success. Recently wo (Tuapoka Times) were shown a sample of this particular variety in Mr A. Moiitz-on’s office in Dunedin, and in size and quality it compares most favorably with the imported article. The onions in question were grown by Mr A. J. Butterfield, mamger of the Cromwell Development Co., on Cromwell Flat on irrigated land. The crop was down in September, aud liarvested iu March of the following year, and although some time has elapsed the specimens were still in perfect order. They are well grown, sound, and show no signs of growth, and should keep for another six months. Wo feel quite sure from the particulars supplied by Mr Moritzson that onion growing both in Toviot and Cromwell districts, on commercial linos, would pay handsomely. Ho informs us that when Canterbury onions wero quoted at £3 10s, he sold onions grown at Earnsclough at £8 10s, and two years ago when Melbourne onions wore off the market and Californian new season’s crop arrived iu bad order, he sold onions grown in the Lowburn at 2Jd por lb—equal to .£22 10a per ton—while last year be disposed of a parcel of onions from the same district at £ls per ton. Mr Moritzson believes that onions of the Brown Spanish variety, with irrigation, would grow to perfection in this part of Otago. The land, ho contended, should produce 15 tons to the acre. Canterbury, under fair conditions, produced 25 to 28 tons of the Globe variety to the acre. This, ho concluded, would give the people interested an idea of what onion culture meant as an income.