120 Southern Gardener^s Practical Manual 



It is an excellent keeper, small, but very mild. It 

 keeps twelve months and is used all through the winter 

 and spring for seasoning soups, salads, stews, etc., and 

 for pickles. 



The Top Shallot should have a place in every south- 

 ern garden. This, like the Top Onion, produces buttons 

 at the top of the flower-stalk, but, unlike it, multiplies 

 at the base, growing often a dozen stalks from one. 

 This plant is perennial and ready to supply flavoring 

 to the housewife every day in the year. The bunches 

 are earthed up in early spring eight inches high, causing 

 the stems to blanch. A single row 100 feet long will 

 supply a family for many years without replanting if, 

 in gathering the plants for use, one is left. This, by 

 the next fall, will have developed again into a bunch 

 ready for blanching for spring use. The blanched stems 

 are used cooked or raw, as are "bunched" onions. A 

 furrow should be opened on each side of the row in 

 winter, fertilizers applied and the soil returned. I have 

 a row now seven years old and still productive. 



PARSLEY 



Only a small rich corner is necessary to produce an 

 abundant supply for an ordinary family. Since the seed 

 germinates slowly, the soil should be very finely pulver- 

 ized. The young plants are tender and easily choked 

 by weeds. The plants may be started in a coldframe in 

 March by sowing the seed between the rows of other 

 vegetables, such as cabbage or lettuce, which will be 

 removed by the time the parsley seed vegetates. It 



