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USEFUL 



PROJECTS AND IMPROVEMENTS. 



On the Management of the 

 Onion. By Thomas Andreiv 

 Knight, Esq. F.R.S. Sfc. 



THE first object ofthe Horticul- 

 tural Society beingto point out 

 improvements in thecultureof those 

 plants, which are extensively use- 

 ful to the public, I send a few re- 

 marks on the management of one 

 of these, the onion ; which both 

 constitutes one ofthe humble lux- 

 uries of the poor, and finds its way 

 in various forms to the tables of 

 the affluent and luxurious. 



Every bulbous rooted plant, and 

 indeed every plant which produces 

 leaves, and lives longer than one 

 year, generates, in one season, the 

 sap, or vegetable blood, which 

 composes the leaves and roots of 

 the succeeding spring ; and when 

 the sap has accumulated during 

 one or more seasons, it is ulti- 

 mately expended in the production 

 of blossoms and seeds. This re- 

 served sap is deposited in, and 

 composes in a great measure, the 

 bulb ; and moreover the quantity 

 accumulated, as well as the period 

 required for its accumulation, varies 

 greatly in the same species of 

 (iUnt, uuder more or less favour- 



able circumstances. Thus the 

 onion in the south of Europe ac- 

 quires a much larger size during 

 the long and warm summers of 

 Spain and Portugal, in a single 

 season, than in the colder climate 

 of England ; but under the follow- 

 ing mode of culture, which I have 

 long practised, two summers in 

 England produce nearly the effect 

 of one in Spain or Portugal, and the 

 onion assumes nearly the form and 

 size of those thence imported. 



Seeds ofthe Spanish or Portugal 

 onion are sown at the usual period 

 in the spring, very thickly, and in 

 poor soil ; generally under the 

 shade of a fruit tree : and in such 

 situations the bulbs in the autumn 

 are rarely found much to exceed 

 the size of a large pea. These are 

 then taken from the ground, and 

 preserved till the succeeding spring, 

 when they are planted at equal dis- 

 tances from each other, and they 

 afl'ord plants, which differ from 

 those raised immediately from seed 

 only in possessing much greater 

 strength and vigour, owing to the 

 quiintity of previously generated 

 sap being much greater in the bulb 

 than in the seed. The bulbs, thus 

 raised, often exceed considerably 



five 



