September 3, 1669. ] 



JOUBNAL OP HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDBNEB. 



191 



bloomiog, remove them to the foot of a eonth wall to ripen 

 their growth, water them moderately till their tops show eigne 

 of decay, aixl Ihe pots may then be laid on theii' eides till 

 potting time. — W. Keake. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



KITCHEN GARDEN. 



OtUons — Cure are still too firm to take np, though the leaves 

 are changing colour and drooping. As long aa the foliase re- 

 mains green and Ihe roots firm, it is a pity to saciifice size of 

 balb to mere quit^kuees of pulling. Our sample will lie very 

 fair, thf-ngh th«i Onions will not be so large as if we had had a 

 little ruiu earlier. la all eiiff soils, when large Onions are 

 required, as soon as the winter. stored ones are over, it is well 

 to sow a piece of Tripoli and White or Brown Spanish without 

 delay. Uur aotumn-sown ones were very large without trans- 

 planting this season, bnt in general we have the best bulbs 

 from those Iruusplanted about Miirch. The great secret of 

 snocees n doing tiiH well, after the ground is properly prepared, 

 and trodOen rather firmly before transplanting, is to take up 

 the roots as carefully, and preserving them of as great a length 

 aa posi-ible. Make the hole deep enough with the dibble to let 

 the whole length of the roots easily in, fasten with one 

 stroke of the dibble in the usual way, but only put the roots in 

 the ground, leading the base of the Onion, if covered at all, 

 covered not, more than one-eighth of an inch. Plant deeper, 

 and you have every chance of obtaining huge thick-necke instead 

 of fine bull)?. 



In such tropical weather as we had at the end of the week, 

 with not a single cloud to give ua a little relief, we advise 

 all who must take up their spring-sown Onions not to leave 

 them fully exposed to the sun any longer than is pufiicient to 

 wither the roots, as the.=e are exposed upwards. What further 

 drying the Oijions require should be given them in a compara- 

 tively shaded place. We have times oat of number found fine 

 Onions decaying in winter and spring, from Ihe roasting they 

 had from the sun in the open air after being taken up. Pieces 

 of the Ooion thus become blistered, and then the bulb decays, 

 especially wben kept at all warm. Many lessen the time of 

 the Onions' keeping from being too careful of them. If the 

 bulbs are kept dry, no frost that we have ever had will harm 

 them. They never do better than when plaited in a string in 

 the old-fasbioned way, either plaiting them with their own 

 tops alone, or using a few straws or a bit of string along with 

 them to make them more secure. These strings may be of any 

 length, but tbey are most useful when the Onions are all sized, 

 and are from twenty to thirty in number. There is no better 

 way of keeping them than suspended from nails in the wall 

 nnder the projecting eaves of an old-fashioned thatched cottage, 

 where little snow or rain can reach tbem. The back wall of a 

 shed, open in front, is also a good place for keeping them long 

 »nd well. Thote who are short of close structures from which 

 frost can be excluded, may thus find some ra'her open dry 

 place in which to store their Onions. Provided there was 

 dryness, we have never known the most severe frost hurt an 

 Onion. Though a great necessary for Ihe kitchen, there is 

 nothing particularly savoury in it to some people ; but an easy 

 mode of keeping the Onion long sound is a matter of im- 

 portance to many labourers, who could not get on as they do 

 without tlieir large raw Onion as a help to their dinner 

 when too far removed from their own cottages. In many cases 

 their carefully harvested Onions shoot prematurely in spring, 

 from being kept too warm in winter. Bear in mind that the 

 openest and coolest place will be the best if it be but mode- 

 rately dry. 



We musk take up a part ere long to make room for our first 

 Cabbages tor spring. Meantime we have turned out three 

 Bucoessions of Coleworts, the first about ready to encoeed the 

 Cabbages. Our main Cabbage plantations of last autumn, be- 

 sides giving some good second-crop Cabbages, are now densely 

 covered with fine y.iung sprouts, and would be greatly benefited 

 by manure- watering as soon aa we can give it to them.' We never 

 loand the strongest sewage do them much harm, as it requires 

 some time to reach the roots, and is most effective when applied 

 to the ground before a good rain or heavy shower. The decayed 

 large leaves act very well as a mulching, if better cannot be 

 had. We have been obliged to mulch C-mliflowers, Peas, 

 Beans, &o., as the heat was so excessive. Watering in such 

 weather was out of the question, unless it could be applied so 

 efleotuallv as to reach all the fibres of the plants. 



Watering. — Several oases have been brought toonr notice, in 



which plants have fairly succumbed in this broiling weather, 

 owing to a mistaken kindness. "A" has only a limited allow- 

 ance of water, bnt the leaves of his plants flag, and he runs 

 along the rows, giving a little to-day and a little to-morrow, 

 and the following day the plants look worse than ever, and 

 ultimately succumb, after all the attention paid to them. "B," 

 after pursuing a similar course, is perfectly astonished on 

 taking up the plants to find the roots of most of them thoroughly 

 dry. If all these waterings had been given in one soaking, and 

 the surface stirred or mulched directly afterwards, the plants 

 might have withstood the scorching, and never been injured. 

 Wetting the surface merely encouraged surface-rooting, and 

 the roots there formed were thrivelled up by then'Xt day's 

 sun. The bulk of the roots was never reached, and what 

 is worse, whilst evaporation was carrjing off moisture in 

 vapour from the foliage, the roots, as a whole, were rendered 

 powerless to absorb moisture from beneath, as the surface- 

 watering had paralysed for a time their full action, and until 

 the surface soil becomes dry again, the roots deep down derive 

 no advantage, or bnt little, from the reservoirs of moisture 

 stored up beneath them. Our Wheat fields always yield best 

 after a dry summer; yet the Wheat plant cannot perfect itself 

 in mere dry soil, but the roots go down a long way after mois- 

 ture, and the free radiation of heat from the surface enables 

 tbem to appropriate it as it passes the fibres. A few very slight 

 showers, though at first seemingly refreshing, do no more real 

 good, except from the cloudy atmosphere, than mere sur- 

 face-watering. Many and many a time we have looked on 

 quarters of Cauliflower, and fields of Turnips, withstanding a 

 fierce sun, and the soil at the suiface dry enough, and there 

 has come a gentle refreshing shower that has cleaned the 

 foliage, though doing little more than lajingthe dust ; and often 

 on the following day, when the bright sun came out, we have 

 noticed that the leaves would flag for a time, though they stood 

 up boldly before. The slight sbo.ver, like our mere surface- 

 waterings, had arrested for a time the rise of vapour from 

 beneath. In our fields and gardens, it is not always true 

 policy to water when a plant shows a little distress. A little 

 fiigging of the foliage will often take place when there is 

 abundance of moisture at the roots. The flagging may merely 

 be the result of a sudden change of weather from dull to 

 bright, in other words, from a very languid evaporation to an 

 extremely active evaporation of moisture from the foliage. The 

 foliage at once responds to the sunbeam, but it requires a little 

 lime before the roots, previously in a comparatively inert 

 state, can be aroused into such activity as to absorb siiiScient 

 to meet the demands on the expanded leaves. Hence, as re- 

 spects tender plants, it is often better to arrest the rapid eva- 

 poration or perspiration, instead of giving deluges of water 

 where the roots are moist enough already. In the case of many 

 hardy plants, say a quarter of Caulifljwer, if satisfied there is 

 moisture at the roots, the little flagging and drooping nnder 

 such circumstances is of no consequence. When the sun de- 

 clines in power and sets, the leaves will recover, and will resist 

 a second and a third day's sun much better than the first. It 

 is quite as possible to kill plants by ill-timed, injudicious, fre- 

 quent watering, as by giving them no water at all. Plants 

 when well established out of doors, would often do better after- 

 wards if they never had any artificial watering. 



Mushrooms. — As the material came in so useful for mulching 

 and other purposes, we have been glad to clear out all our beds 

 in the Mushroom house, with the exception of one piece which 

 has continued in bearing, but we shall remove it shortly, as we 

 have been gathering some time from the shallow beds in the 

 open shed in a shady place. Our Mushroom house is a very 

 common affair, made of wood, which often needs repairing, 

 and harbours more enemies than slate would do. Aa soon 

 as it is cleared out we shall smoke the house with sulphur and 

 a little turpentine, and then whitewash the walls. The lean-to 

 shed has a sloping ceiled roof of the same slope as Ihe outside 

 roof, and we generally, every two or three years, paint the 

 former thinly with boiled oil, instead of whitewashing it. Oar 

 reasons for this are chiefly two. If in making fresh beds, 

 whil-t others are bearing, there should be any moisture from 

 the manure condensed against the roof, it trickles down to the 

 front wall, and does not fall or drop on ihe beds. However 

 well the lath and plastering of such a roof may be done, the steam 

 and vapour from the manure will in time penetrate the best 

 plaster, and when that is Ihe case, the lath and woodwork will 

 soon decay and fall down, most likely when least expected. If 

 the roof were coated with Eoman or with Portland cement, 

 probably no moisture would penetrate ; but we have found that 



