Following this supply comes the Virginia crop of onions shipper' from New York about June 15th. These latter shipments are principally of the potato onion, raised from the set and grown in clusters. The early market gardens of Virginia and Florida have played sad havoc with the market gardeners in this vicinity, or rather with those who have attempted to compete in the supply of early vegetables. During periods of scarcity and high prices, onions have been received in this market from Spain, Germany, Mexico, and Fayal. No onions are exported from this city, ex cept, perhaps, a few to the British Provinces.
Forty to fifty years ago, and even more recently, the common red onions were principally sold fastened on a wisp of straw about the size of a man's thumb, which were called a "string" or "rope of onions," and sometimes a "bunch" of onions. They were tied, three or four dozen on this rope of straw with twine, by placing the foot on one end, on which end the producers commenced to tie the onions closely, round and round, until they reached the height of the knee. The largest ones were packed at the bottom and the small ones tapering to the top. However, when loosely tied, or the string broken, many onions were lost to the purchaser. In the olden time, in tne New York market, a certain weight was demanded by law, while it appears in 1771 that a "bunch" or "rope of onions" should weigh at least four pounds net weight, under penalty of forty shillings.
At the present time desirable lots of onions are selling here at $2.50 per barrel, the producer receiving about $2.25. There is no activity at this price, and transactions on a large scale would need be quoted a shade off. Dealers are not in possession of formation sufficiently definite from the Western sections to mine the future of the supply and value, although so far as known the Western supply is as large as usual. There is at least thing to indicate a higher range of prices for the present. Our onion-raisers will hardly expect to receive war prices again very soon. One fall, during the inflation, onions rose to $5.00 while the following spring, owing to scarcity and speculation, onions were sold in Boston market as high as $18.00 per barrel, About here onions have grown rather too rank, or, in other words, there has been so much growing weather that the vegetable has become rank and coarse. This will naturally inter fere with their keeping quality. Onions, to keep well, must he well matured, with their tops properly dried off and then stored in a cool place. Small white and yellow onions for pickling are culled out of the regular growth, and sometimes sell as low as fifty cents to one dollar per barrel, though when really scarce they command nearly as much as the larger samples. Small onions should never be packed with the marketable lots.