The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1897-11-04
BuNCHED ONIONS.
Practically No Longer Sold Here, But
Exported in Large Quantities.

Unions were loTIueTly very coInIuOLAy
sold in strings or punches as we'll as in
bulk. The onions were tied by turn
o. twine around their stems to punches
of straw. In punching onions the
largest were placed at the bottom, and
they were graduated in size up to the
very small ones at the top, making
slender cone of onions, with the straw.
t. which they were tied, projecting
above the top. serving as handle for
the bunch. The onions were usually
nicely graded and punched trinity.
Forty years and more ago onions put
up in this manner were a common sight
in the grocery stores. Now they are
rarely seen hereabouts in that form,
and almost without exception are sold
loose. Onions are still punched in large
quantities for export.
American onions are exported to all
the Spanish-American countries, the
West Indies, Mexico and South America,
and about half the onions exported go
cr+ in punches packed rather loosely
in barrels and crates. One New York
firm exporting potatoes, onions, apples,
garlic, and so on, ships hundreds of
| thousands of punches of onions packed
in this manner annually, besides thou
sands of barrels and crates of loose
onions The modern bunch is not made
so long as the old-time bunch, and it
contains fewer onions, but it is put up
in the same symmetrical manner, and
with the wisps of straw rising above
the top. Bunch onions as now put up
run 11s pounds to 2A pounds to the
bunch. The onions punched are mostly
red, which are preferred in the coun-
tries to which they are exported.
Bunch onions are now raised largely
on Long Island, and a great many are
raised also in Rhode Island and in Con-
| necticut. Care is taken in selecting
them to preserve the stem, by which
| the onion is bound to the straw. The
punching is usually done on the farms
where the onions are raised, but some
times the supply of punching onions is
not equal to the demand, and it is then
supplemented from other stock and the
| bunchers are brought to the city and
the onions punched there. The work
is done entirely by hand. An expert
buncher can put up from 400 to SOC
Eunches day.
! There is reason in the punching
Onions keep better put up in that form
and can be handled better. There have
been other changes in the onion IN
dustry in this country. Formerly
| L
ter of onion raising. A good part o.
the valuable land there that had beer
devoted to onions has now been giveT
over to the cultivation of tobacco, ant
the onion scepter has departed from
Weathersfield Orange county in thi:
state is now the greatest onion-pro
ducing section.-N Y. Sun.
An Untrodden Canadian Wilderness
The vast country north of the Gulf o
St. Lawrence is, to the uncommercia
explorer, the most interesting regioI
on this continent, if not in the world
For nearly four centuries the ships o
civilization have sailed by it, yet ex
cept at the very waters edge, there ha
been no intrusion upon it. The river
which pour forth from every opening
in the hills bear witness that the bac]
country is network of lakes and water
courses. Ask the commissioner o
crown lands of the province of Que
bee to-day what his department know
CT that region, and he will tell you tha
II is the leastknown portion of Mort
America: that only few of the lake
have been surveyed; that two explo1
ing parties have recently crossed til
. peninsula; that a handful of fisher
mems houses fringe the gulf; that fo
the rest of it the wandering Montagnai
Indians are the only tourists who ira,
erse half million miles of territory
, Steamers go up the Saguenay. LAX
St. John is reached by rail. But ava
, to the northeast is tremendous trao
of country, from whence issue stream
greater than the Hudson, the heat
, waters Of which no white man has eve
seen.-Frederic Irland, in Scribner's.
Names in Alaska.
i The laudable suggestion is made tha
e Alaska should not be inflicted by gr'