262 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



If onions grow thick-necked, and do not bulb properly, 

 bend down the stems about two inches above the neck, to 

 the ground, without disturbing the roots. This is needful 

 only in very wet seasons. 



When very large bulbs are desired, the seed may be 

 sown quite thick, in pretty good soil, and not thinned out 

 at all. Little bulbs or sets will form about the size of the 

 button onion, which may be taken up when the tops die, 

 and preserved in a dry loft until time for preparing the 

 bed, and then may be planted, instead of the seed, eight 

 inches apart in the drills. If they throw up a seed stalk, 

 it must be promptly broken off, or they will form no bot- 

 toms. These sets, planted out early in the year, will form 

 fine large bulbs in May or June ; while those raised from 

 the seed do not ripen until July. Hence the latter are 

 better keepers. Besides, they are better flavored, and 

 more solid. The little bulbs of the top onion are managed 

 like these sets. 



When the crop is ready for harvesting, it is known by 

 the drying up and change of color of the stems. 



The Onion-fly, {Anihomya ceparum^) is a native of 

 Europe, of late years becoming common in many American 

 gardens, and wherever found is very 

 destructive to the crop. The parent insect 

 is a small ash gray fly, about half the size 

 of the common house fly. The female 

 lays her eggs on the leaves, when they 

 are very young, close to the earth. As 

 soon as the maggots hatch, which is when 

 the young plants are about the size of 

 a quill, they descend between the coats 

 of the onion to its base, feeding upon the bottom part 

 of the bulb, which soon becomes rotten, when the worm 

 leaves it, to enter the earth and complete its transform- 

 ations. Figure 71 represents the larva of the natural 



