18 On Onions. 
through the cork, which enabled the gardener to drop it 
with facility equi distant.) The ground was attended 
to as usual. 
The result was, that I had as good a crop of onions, 
and as large as what was gathered: from an adjoining 
bed that had been planted with small onions in the old 
mode, with this difference only, that they were a few 
days later, which was a material objection, as ours ob- 
tain a superiority by reaching a foreign market, before 
those of Connecticut. It then occurred to me, that that 
obstacle might be overcome by sowing the onion seed 
in September, after a crop of peas, beans, or any early 
vegetable or grain, was taken off. Therefore the next 
fall, I had a large spot of ground prepared and sowed it 
the second week in September; they attamed a good 
size that fall, and were tended as other onions next 
spring, and I had the satisfaction to find them as early, 
large and numerous as any produced that season, and 
generally the largest I had ever raised; since when I 
have pursued no other mode, and have not failed except 
in one bed which the gardener had neglected sowing 
until the middle of October, which I found was too late, 
a part of them being thrown out by the frost, as they 
had not obtained a sufficient hold of the ground. 
The comparative advantage of this, over the old mode 
of culture, must be very evident, as it is a saving of 
nearly half the labour as well as time. 
By the old mode they must be sowed and gathered, 
planted out the next year, and again gathered, two years — 
occupation of ground, as also a lapse of two years be- 
fore the farmer receives his reward for labour. 
