LECT. vni PROFITABLE CULTURE 115 



crop, as also have strawberries. Early potatoes only 

 occupy the land half the season, late sorts remain 

 the whole season, but yield heavier crops. 



Potatoes are commonly planted too closely. With- 

 out intercropping, the rows of the earliest sorts 

 should be two feet apart, in rich soil ; second early, 

 medium-sized growers, such as Beauty of Hebron, 

 Early Regent and Chancellor, two and a half feet ; 

 and the strong growing late sorts, such as those 

 named on page 112, also The Bruce, Cheal's Prolific, 

 and Imperator, indeed all of a robust character, ought 

 to be allowed a space of three feet between the rows. 

 The last-named is the best late potato for poor soil : 

 in rich land the tubers grow too large and unshapely. 

 Manures for potatoes have attention in Lecture IV. 

 page 68, and methods of preventing the disease in 

 Lecture V. page 84. 



Onions. These are next in importance to pota- 

 toes. They are used when young for salads, a brisk 

 sale also being found for them in this state for con- 

 sumption with the workman's bread and cheese. 

 These " bunching " onions are sown towards the end 

 of July, about fifty pounds of seed per acre being 

 used broadcast or in drills. They are sent to market 

 in May and June in fan-shaped bunches. This is a 

 profitable crop, often yielding <50 per acre, and 

 under brisk market-garden practice the land cleared 

 so early in the season is soon under some other crop. 

 Those young onions when transplanted in March 

 produce fine bulbs in suinmer, usually free from the 

 maggot. Small pickling onions, the result of sowing 

 thickly in poor soil in May give a profitable return. 



In 1890 Messrs. King, of Broome, in Bedfordshire, 

 grew 130 acres of onions for bulbing. The crop 

 averaged eleven tons per acre, which at 10 a ton 

 brought the startling gross total of 14,300. 



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