V. OXION. 



winter use. Some persons, instead of sowing the onions 

 all along the drill, drop four or five seeds at every six or 

 seven inches distance j and leave the onions to grow thus, 

 in clumps ; and this is not a bad way ; for, they will 

 squeeze each other out. They will not be large ; but, they 

 will be ripe earlier, and will not run to neck. The third 

 mode of cultivation is as follows : sow the onions any 

 time between mid-May and mid-June, in drills six inches 

 apart, and put the seed very thick along the drills. Let 

 all the plants stand, and they will get to be about as big 

 round as the top of your little finger. Then the leaves 

 will get yellow, and, when that is the case, pull up the 

 onions and lay them on a board, till the sun have withered 

 up the leaves. Then take these diminutive onions, put 

 them in a bag, and hang them up in a dry place till 

 spring, taking the biggest for pickles. As soon as the 

 frost is gone, and the ground dry, plant out these onions 

 in good and fine ground, in rows a foot apart. Make, not 

 drills, but little marks along the ground j and put the 

 onions at six or eight inches apart. Do not cover them 

 with the earth ,- but just press them down upon the mark 

 with your thumb and fore finger. The ground ought to 

 be trodden and slightly raked again before you make the 

 marks; for no earth should rise up about the plants. Pro- 

 ceed after this as with sowed onions ; only observe, that, 

 if any should be running up to seed, you must twist down 

 the neck as soon as you perceive it. But, observe this : 

 the shorter the time that these onions have been in the 

 ground the year before, the less likely will they be to run 

 to seed. This is the sure way of having a large and early 

 crop of onions. Preserving onions is an easy matter. 

 Frost never hurts them, unless you move them during the 



