File:The field and garden vegetables of America (Page 142) (6002640318).jpg

Y 1*1 low Onion.
142 ALLIACEOUS PLANTS.
Yellow Onion.
Silver-skin of New England.
One of the oldest varieties, and, as a market onion, proba-
bly better known and more generally cultivated in this country
than any other sort. The true Yellow
Onion has a flattened form and a very small
neck. Its size is rather above medium, —
measuring, when well grown, from three
inches to three inches and a half in diame-
ter, and from two inches to two inches and
a. half in depth. Skin yellowish-brown, or
copper-yellow, — becoming somewhat deeper
by age, or if exposed long to the sun ; flesh white, fine-
grained, comparatively mild, sugary, and well flavored. It
keeps well, and is very prolific : few of the plants, in good
soils and seasons, fail to produce good-sized and well-ripened
bulbs. For the vegetable garden, as well as for field culture,
it may be considered a standard sort.
The Danvers Onion, which is but a sub-variety of the
common Yellow, may prove somewhat more profitable for
extensive cultivation, on account of its globular form ; but
neither in its flavor nor in its keeping properties can it be
said to possess any superiority over the last named.
The term " Silver-skin," by which this onion is very
generally though erroneously known throughout New Eng-
land, has created great confusion between seedsmen and
dealers. Much perplexity might be avoided if its applica-
tion to the Yellow Onion were entirely abandoned. The
genuine Silver-skin, as its name implies, has a skin of pure,
silvery whiteness ; and is, in other respects, very dissimilar
to the present variety.
When extensively cultivated for the market, it should be
sown and subsequently treated as directed for the Danvers
Onion. The yield per acre varies from four to six hundred