ONION 87 



or. tread to give a firm seed-bed, and make a good finish. Be careful 

 to keep down weeds, and do not thin the crop at all. If sown very 

 shallow the bulbs will be round ; if sown an inch deep they will be 

 oval or pear-shaped. 



THE POTATO OR UNDERGROUND ONION is not much grown in 

 this country, in consequence of occasional losses of the crop in 

 severe winters. In the south of England the 'rule as to growing it 

 is to plant on the shortest day, and take up on the longest. It re- 

 quires a rich, deep soil, and to be planted in rows twelve inches apart, 

 the bulbs nine inches apart in the row. Some cultivators earth them 

 up like Potatoes, but we prefer to let the bulbs rise into the light, 

 even by the removal of the earth, so as to form a basin around each, 

 taking care, of course, not to lay bare the roots in so doing. When 

 the planted bulbs have put forth a good head of leaves, they form 

 clusters of bulbs around them, and the best growth is made in the 

 full daylight, the bulbs sitting on and not in the soil. 



THE ONION GRUB (Anthomyia ceparum) is often very troublesome 

 to the crop, especially in its early stages, and its presence may be 

 known by the grass becoming yellow and falling on the ground. It 

 will then be found that the white portion, which should become the 

 bulb, has been pierced to the centre by a fleshy, shining maggot, a 

 quarter of an inch in length, this being the larva of an ashy-coloured, 

 ill-looking, two-winged fly. Where this plague has acquired such a 

 hold as to be a serious nuisance, care should be taken to clear out 

 all the old store of Onions instantly upon a sufficiency of young 

 Onions becoming available in spring, and to burn them without 

 hesitation. If left to become garden waste in the usual way, these old 

 Onions will do much to perpetuate and augment the plague. A 

 regular use of salt and soot will be found an effectual preventive, and 

 the dusting of the ground with charcoal during the summer is also 

 calculated to be useful, as the flies will lay their eggs on the charcoal, 

 instead of the plant, and the larvae will perish as soon as they come 

 forth, instead of prospering as they would do if located on the plant. 

 It is a singular fact, but a fact it is, that transplanted Onions are 

 rarely touched with grub, this pest appearing to require a spring-sown 

 crop for its well-doing. We do not profess to explain the matter, for 

 we must stop somewhere, and may well do so with this practical 

 suggestion of a mode of evading the only plague the Onion grower 

 ever need fear. 



