VEGETABLE GROWING 373 



generally is Paris White Cos and Hardy Green Cos for summer, and the latter and Black 

 Seeded Brown Cos for winter. Of Cabbage varieties, Hardy Hammersmith and Grand 

 Admiral are good for winter, and White Dutch, Stanstead Park, All the Year Round, 

 Tom Thumb, Model, and Epicure, the latter two being curled. 



Mushroom. This acceptable fungus is artificially grown both outdoors and indoors. 

 The common method for outdoor culture is to make up beds in ridge form of 

 stable manure and spawning them. The manure must be that of horses, and of those 

 that are healthy only. This should be one-half of droppings, the rest of rather short 

 straw. When there is much long straw the greater portion should be shaken out. The 

 manure should be kept in an open shed, or if otherwise, when in a heap, covered up 

 with mats. As soon as collected it should be well shaken up, mixed, and put into a 

 neat heap. If it seems dry, then it should have, as the turning takes place, a liberal 

 sprinkling of water. The turning should be repeated in some five or six days, or when 

 the heap is found to have become hot again. If found dry, more water should be given. 

 A third turning may be needful to get the manure into good condition, and after that it 

 can be built up into a bed, having a base 2^ feet wide and the same height in the 

 centre, trodden firm as put together. The heat of the bed should be tested with a stick 

 forced into it, and as soon as found to be hot pieces of mushroom spawn, such as are pur- 

 chased in dry, square cakes from seedsmen, should be well forced into the surface of the 

 bed at some 8 inches apart all over it. The cakes may be cut each into some eight pieces. 

 Next coat the bed over with rather close loam from a pasture, give a good watering, using 

 tepid water, then cover it up well with a thick coat of straw litter, and if it be winter then 

 cover with mats also. Beds of this description produce mushrooms in about two months. 

 They can be made from September until April. If beds be made slantwise or sloping 

 under a wall or in a shed or cellar they must be from properly prepared manure as 

 described, be solid, spawned, and covered up. The spawn cakes should have been made 

 certainly less than a year from the time of purchase. 



Onions. Sowing seed of these somewhat odorous bulbs was formerly limited to two 

 seasons the spring and late summer. Now it is a common practice to sow seed under 

 glass in midwinter, putting the plants outdoors in April to grow into extra large bulbs. 

 Being somewhat deep rooters and gross feeders, Onions need both a deeply worked and 

 well-manured soil. Many growers adopt the rule of putting Onions on the same ground 

 every year ; others alternate the crops, Onions one year, Cabbages or Peas the next. But 

 whether the ground be so cropped or whether several crops follow the Onions, it is 

 indispensable that the ground be always trenched fully 2 feet in depth during the winter 

 to secure a good crop of bulbs, and have a heavy dressing of well-decayed manure worked 

 into it, especially putting some down deep to attract roots to it, and thus furnish them 

 with a liberal supply of food and moisture during dry weather. A method of getting 

 ground into fine condition for Onions is, after trenching and burying a dressing of manure 

 deep into it, to give to the surface a further dressing of well-decayed short manure, 

 forking that in several inches deep, then leaving the soil to settle down for several weeks 

 before sowing the seed. It is the nature of Onion plants to send roots down deep and 

 direct, but they like the soil fairly firm on the surface, as that tends to force the plants into 

 bulb formation all the sooner. 



Times of Sowing Seed. What is commonly called the spring sowing of the main 

 crop is usually made in the month of March or early in April. The condition of the soil 

 and nature of the weather must determine the exact time, but it is always well to re- 

 member that the tops of very early raised plants often suffer from sharp spring frosts. 

 The usual practice is to strain a garden line across the plot of ground to be sown, and by 

 its aid then with a hoe to draw shallow drills 12 inches apart, sowing the seed thinly 

 along these, and covering it up with soil. If the soil be naturally light, loose, or porous, it 

 is wise before drawing the drills to either tread it over evenly or to run a light roller over 

 it, as that makes it firmer. After filling in the drills the whole plot should be neatly 

 raked over. The customary autumn sowing is made from the 2oth to the 3oth of 

 August under similar conditions, but in this case the ground need not be specially 

 prepared if it has carried a crop of early Potatoes, Peas, or some other vegetable, 

 and for these has been previously trenched or deeply dug and manured. It may be 

 but needful to lightly fork over the surface to level it and enable the seed to be sown. 

 As the plants have to stand outdoors all the winter it is unwise to have the soil too rich, 

 as if the plants be coarse or unduly gross they may be killed by severe frosts. The 

 seed sowings may be moderately thin in both cases, as where the plants are thicker in 

 the rows much labour is necessary later in thinning them, and there is also much waste of 

 seed. Even though many plants'be used for salading in a young state it is not well to 

 allow them to remain to become large enough for that purpose in the rows that are to be 

 thinned for the main crops. It is so much better to sow one or two extra rows more 

 thickly with seed expressly for pulling when large enough, and clearing the plants 

 entirely as wanted. From the autumn sown breadths it is good practice in March to lift 



