116 



KITCHEN-G AKDEN PLANTS. 



[chap 



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 line ground, in rows a foot apart. 

 jMake, not drillsy but liule marks along the ground ; and put the 

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

 earth ; but just j^re.^s fliem 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. Proceed after this as with sowed onions : 

 only observe that, if any should be running up to seed, you must 

 ticist down the nech as soon as you peiceive it. But observe this : 

 the shorter the time that these onions have been in the ground the 

 year before, ti.e less liliely will they he to run to seed. This is the 

 sure way of having a large and early crop of onions, fourth 

 method is one that is now generally used by the market gardeners 

 round London ; and it is one by which they obtain prodigious 

 crops. From the middle to the latter end of the month of August 

 they sow onions, broad-cast in beds a.^d thickly, and let them sta;id 

 the winter, which they will do tolerably well unless snow or water 

 lay much upon them. Having the ground prepared as for the first 

 method mentioned above ; that is, having it in good tilth, finely 

 broken and rich, you begin planting out in the month of ]SIarch. 

 The plants may be put in rows, because in this manner they are 

 much more easily hoed ; but the thing to attend to most in this 

 work is, to have the roots only of the plants buried ; not tl^e 

 little bulb (for, small as the onion is, there will be a little white 

 bulb), but merely the Jihres, fastened in the ground ; and any man 

 who has seen this work done must have observed that, unless the 

 ground be made very fine indeed, it is impossible to proceed with 

 any certainly in this delicate operation. The labourers in the 

 market gardens of this neighbourhood (Kensington) do this work 

 with wonderful rapidity and exactness ; and it is common to see 

 five or six acres in a piece all planted in this manner. There ^vill 

 be two or three hoeiiigs v.anted according to the season and the 

 state of the ground, but they should not be deep. Some of the 

 plants will pipe, or run to seed, and these should eithea* have the 

 pipes pulled off or twisted down. Preserving onions is an easv 

 matter. Frost never hurts them, unless you more them during the 

 time that they are froze?!. Any dry, airy place will therefore do. 



