The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1903-11-13
IowA's BIG ONION CROPS.
Scott County 1rmers Are MAKING
Good Incomes Raising the
Tangent Vegetable.

tricts in the United States, often quoted
as the greatest, is that which lies along
the Iowa shore of the Mississippi river
above here and has Davenport as its
market and shipping point. The onion
Is known as the Scott county orange
and is one OF the main agricultural sta
pies of this region. Just now it is being
sent in carload after carload to ST. Louis,
the principal point Of distribution over
the south. There are some shipments
to other southern points, even as far as
New Orleans, but St Louis is the great
jobbing point to which the commission
houses here consign. Chicago gets fair
slice of the crop, Cincinnati takes some
and there are scattering shipments to
other points, but st. Louis has long been
the principal consignee.
The harvest has been on here several
weeks, says recent Davenport report.
The crop is fine and, though the average
is not as great this year as it has been
in some past years, there appears now
to be total product here of $50 to 200
carloads, running about 600 bushels to
the car The quality is excellent this
year and the market has held firmly
around the price of so cents per busheI
Usually the price says by this time, but
this year it has held up we'll. The fail
ure of the crop, in part or in whole, in
other onion growing regions is under
stood to be the reason of this stiffness.
There is q tract in Ohio that grows
good onions, and there is another In
Nebraska about 40 miles west of Omaha,
but the Scott county, Iowa, onion field
has for 60 years been the big one, and
one that could always reckoned upon.
There have been very few failures here.
The quality has fluctuated with the sea-
son, sunburn and rot appearing at times
to do mischief, but usually the red onion
of Scott county has been well at the top
of the market. 1t has made more than
one man rich in this part of the coun-
try, and it is paying big dividends this
year.
There is no crop that northern farm
er can raise that means so much money
to him as the onion. Unfortunately, the
opportunities in that direction are few,
for there is not much prime onion land
In the country. When the Scott coun-
ty tract was new, in the earliest '40's, it
was no difficult thing to get 900 bushels
from an acre of it. Nearly that yield has
been gathered in recent years where the
fields have been we'll maintained with
fertilizers and cultivation. Five hundred
and 600 bushels to the acre are more
usual, but still higher yields are often
got. There IS a good deal of work in
making the crop, cultivation being
large item. so it is reckoned that it takes
$40 to $50 an acre to grow onions. In
times of low prices the margin is reduced
but 1t is still large, except when a glut
Of onions lets the bottom quite out OF
the market. Once or twice within the
last 25 years onions here have been down
to ten cents and even eight cents bush.
Ell, with practically no sales.at those
prices, but the average has been far
above those figures, and at price that
meant large returns.
There is more money in onions than
In corn 20 times over, provided that the
land Is adapted to onion growing. A
yield of 500 bushels to the acre at this
years prices has meant a profit of 5000
or more per acre; and in those cases
where the farmer and his family did the
work, hiring nothing, they have abb
sorbed the cost of cultivation and made
just that much more. The best Scott
county onion land is held at hundreds
of dollars per acre and is rarely sold. 1t
Is usually farmed in fields of small or
moderate size, but there are many small
patches. tracts of an acre or two, or a
fraction of an acre, that are made to
yield astonishingly..
10 &c oil 81;
sacks, holding about two bushels. never
In bulk. During the onion harvest here
there are usually weeks when the streets
are blocked by the wagons of the onion
growers, waiting their chance to get to
the warehouse, unloading or getting
away. The steamers usually carry
good part of the shipments to st. Louis.
though there is very large balance that
goes there by rail. In the colder wealth
er all the shipments, of course, are made
by rail.
There are always some growers who
hold their crop of onions until we'll into
the winter or even the spring While
there is possibility of loss by freezing,
and certainly some loss by rotting and
always some shrinkage, there are now
and then onion markets in the spring.
time that are simply golden in theiI
chances of easy wealth for the man who
has onions to sell. 1t was a recent af
fair here that a group of Scott county
onion raisers held back their crop unit
the severe weather was past The fall
market had been about 35 cents bush.
ell. In the spring they got their onion,
off with no heavy shrinkage on thief
hands at a price around S125. Their.
have been other years when the stool
of late onions went still higher. 1t /.
believed that. notwithstanding the very
good market this fall, number of grow