The dead tell tales
John Turbott, 1870-1954
Did someone say to John Turbott, ‘‘know your onions’’, and he took it literally? Whether it happened or not, John did know his onions, to the extent of developing his own variety, the Long Keeper. Also known as the Pukekohe Longkeeper, or Turbott’s Longkeeper, the variety is still popular and the brown onions on sale today are most probably from his stock.
John’s success is partly due to his parents’ allocation of some of the fertile soil around Pukekohe so suitable for horticulture. His parents, James and Catherine, arrived on the Ganges in 1865 as members of the Waikato Immigration Scheme, whereby prospective settlers were gifted 10 acres. The Turbotts’ land was at Harrisville and it was there that John grew up on the family dairy farm. After a period working in a flax mill at Waerenga and then bush-felling, John settled on the family farm. In 1900, he married Charity Susan Barnaby; they had three daughters, two of whom, Winnie and Mildred, married neighbouring dairy farmers in Pukekohe East in the late 1920s.
By 1923, John was developing the strain of onions that is now known the world over. He grew onions for sale, but began as well to select for the better keepers and subsequently grew fields of onions for their seed. Just when he had the onions on the market is not certain, but in August 1934, one seller of plants specified he had ‘‘Turbott’s famous long-keeping strain’’. The Plants for Sale columns advertised the plants: prices ranged from 3/- to 6/- per 1000 (railage extra) and most of the growers were in the Franklin-Mangere district. They soon ousted the Spanish brown, the Straw and the Ailsa Craig varieties in popularity.
John encouraged his two sons-inlaw, Reg Adamson and Tom Morgan, to carry on with the onion seed business, overseen by himself. By the 1940s, they were so into it they abandoned dairying and devoted themselves to different aspects of the business. Reg had a large shed devoted to the harvested bulbs, Tom specialised in seed production. Tom also had an apiary, and the bees played a major role in pollinating the onion flowers. A few years ago, John’s granddaughter wrote to Tu¯ akau Museum with her memories of the seed-harvesting operation. She said that the seed heads would be inspected daily from late January, and once ready, there would be about four pickings until all the seed heads were harvested. Family members went between the rows, cutting off the seed heads and dropping them into a large sack hooked on to a belt around the waist that hung between their legs. After being dried in the shed, a sackful of seed heads would be flailed by the men using sticks of ma¯ nuka, then the seeds and dross were sieved. The heavier seed dropped on to a large canvas sheet laid on the floor while the draught through the open doors of the shed took away the lighter seed pods.
From there, the seed was washed and dried – and inspected by the Department of Agriculture. The bagged seed was stamped as certified by the government inspector before being sent to growers around the country. By the time John died in 1954, the Morgan and Adamson families had retired and onsold the Longkeeper germplasm to another Harrisville onion-growing family, the Mays. In turn, their business became May & Ryan and in 2004, that onionbreeding programme was sold. However, the germplasm remains in collections and is available for growers under its original name.
Note: Many thanks to Jan Butcher of Tu¯ akau Museum for forwarding the family reminiscences.