4 io GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS 



being first drawn. Into these put the plants at 12 inches apart, lifting them from the 

 boxes with a garden trowel, so as to retain to each a nice ball of soil and roots. Only 

 these balls but no portion of the stems should be buried in the soil, well fixing them, 

 and, if needful, watering in. Because thus early raised, and having so much space 

 between them, the plants make very strong growth, and later in the summer produce 

 exceptionally large bulbs. Good growers commonly obtain bulbs weighing from 2 Ib. 



Varieties. The common pickling form is the Silver-Skinned, but almost any ordi- 

 nary variety sown thick and left to form bulbs unthinned will produce picklers. The 

 ordinary time for sowing these is in April. 



Winter- Sowing. To obtain exhibition bulbs the finest stocks are Ailsa Craig, 

 Cranston's Excelsior, and Sutton Globe, oval-shaped ; and Lord Keeper, Ai, and Main 

 Crop, round. 



Spring-Sowing. Fine oval varieties are those above-named and Southport Red 

 Globe, James' Keeping, and Champion ; of rounds, Improved Banbury, Improved 

 Reading, and Rousham Park Hero. 



Autumn- Sowing. Any of the above varieties, or of softer onions, Giant Rocca, 

 White Leviathan, Globe Tripoli, and Carter's Record. 



Parsnips. Hardier than are most of the summer grown roots, a sowing may be made 

 so soon as early in March, or at any time during that month, if the soil be in good con- 

 dition for sowing seed. Generally but one sowing of this root crop is made, as the roots 

 are not required for consumption until the winter, and are not acceptable then until 

 matured by a long season's growth. To secure clean, well-shaped, though not neces- 

 sarily long roots, the ground should invariably be trenched during the winter, and have 

 added a moderate dressing of manure well buried down to encourage the main or tap 

 root to go deep rather than favouring the formation of side roots, which fresh manure 

 near the surface promotes. Drills for the seed should be 12 inches apart, and be about 

 2 inches in depth. In sowing the seed, place it thinly equally along the drills, as 

 otherwise much is wasted, and great labour in thinning the plants later is entailed. This 

 thinning should be done when the plants are 3 inches in height. Prior to that the soil 

 between the rows will be all the better for a free deep hoeing, as that facilitates thinning 

 the plants afterwards. The thinning should be to fully 8 inches apart, but if extra large 

 roots are desired, 10 inches apart is not too much. During the summer and autumn the 

 only culture needed is by the frequent use of the hoe between the plants to keep the soil 

 loose and clean. As Parsnips are quite hardy, the roots may be left in the ground all 

 the winter, provided that either some litter or soil be placed over the crowns of the roots 

 in hard weather to exclude frost. It is a good plan, however, to lift every alternate row 

 from a bed, and store the roots in dry sand, ashes, or soil in any cold place under cover, 

 merely cutting off the leaf stems an inch from the crowns. Then there is ample space 

 between the other rows to mould soil over them, but it is quite soon enough to do that 

 early in the new year, as until then frost is seldom hard enough to do Parsnips harm. All 

 experience, however, goes to prove that roots left in the ground keep so much fresher and 

 sweeter than are those earlier lifted and stored. Roots of medium size, clean, and just 

 scraped over and left white, then boiled slowly in sufficient water to cover them in the 

 pot, the water gradually boiling away until the roots are soft, are, when served to table, 

 far more acceptable as food than are roots peeled, cut to pieces, and boiled in water all 

 the time. It is probably largely due to lack of knowledge how best to cook Parsnips 

 that these most nutritious roots are less eaten than they should be. There are few 

 varieties. The most commonly grown is the Hollow Crown, and the whitest selection 

 from that variety is Tender and True, which is so far the best in commerce. A good 

 stock of The Student is very good also. It is better in all cases to secure clean roots 

 of medium size, as they are less watery than are large ones, and furnish the best food. 



Peas. These pod-bearing plants, because productive only during the summer season, 

 have special need for deeply worked soil, to enable roots to go down in search of moisture 

 and food. Where Peas are sown on a light soil that is only dug 12 inches deep, they 

 invariably fail to produce a satisfactory crop in warm weather. When the soil is trenched 

 2 feet deep, and a good dressing of decayed manure buried into it, then the plants 

 invariably keep vigorous and healthy, and carry a fine crop of pods. These are elemen- 

 tary facts that every beginner in gardening should understand. Then a too common 

 fault in Pea culture is sowing seed far too thickly in the drills. Now a proper Pea 

 drill should be fully 4 inches deep, drawn with a large hoe quite straight beside a line of 

 cord, and be fairly broad at bottom. But in the case of large-seeded, wrinkled marrow 

 Peas, especially if the plants reach from 5 feet to 6 feet in height, a pint should be made 

 to sow 100 feet length of rows. That means thin sowing certainly. If the plants range 



