214 



ONION. 



and well-consumed dung, avoiding to use stable-dung in a 

 rank, unreduced state. Turn in the manure to a moderate 

 depth ; and, in digging the ground, let it be broken fine. 

 Grow pickles in poor, light ground, to keep them small. 

 The market-gardeners at Hexham sow their onion-seed oii 

 the same ground for twenty or more years in succession, but 

 annually manure the soil. After digging and levelling the 

 ground, the manure, in a very rotten state, is spread upon it, 

 the onion-seed sown upon the manure, and covered with 

 earth from the alleys, and the crops are abundant, and ex- 

 cellent in quality." — Hort, Trans, i. 121. 



Deane's New England Farmer says, A spot of ground 

 should be chosen for them, which is moist and sandy ; be- 

 cause they require much heat and a considerable degree of 

 moisture. A low situation, where the sand has been washed 

 down from a neighbouring hill, is very proper for them. 

 And if it be the wash of a sandy road, so much the better. 

 The most suitable manures are old, rotten cow and horse- 

 dung mixed, ashes, but especially soot. A small quantity 

 of ashes or sand, or both, should be spread over them after 

 sowing, especially if the soil be not sandy. And it is not 

 amiss to roll the ground after sowing ; or harden the sur- 

 face with the back of a shovel." 



Mr. Armstrong says, " It is propagated either by the seed 

 or by the bulbs. In the first case, you sow in shallow 

 drills, twelve or fourteen inches apart ; cover with mould, 

 and, when the plants come up, thin them, so that they may 

 stand three or four inches from each other. The sooner 

 this is done in the spring, after the earth has acquired a 

 temperature favourable to vegetation, the better will be 

 your crop. It only remains to keep the earth loose and 

 clean about the roots, and, if the vegetation be too vigorous, 

 to break down the tops, so as to determir e the juices to the 

 bulbs. In the other case you but employ the small and 

 half-grown onion of the preceding fall instead of seed." 



Mr. Hubbard, of Concord, Mass. in an article published 

 in the N. E. Farmer^ vol. iii. p. 89, says, " The soil ought 

 to be a deep^ black loam^ that will crumble fine when the 

 plough passes through it ; such as is easily raked smooth 

 and pulverized. A heavy, clammy soil, that adheres to- 

 gether when both wet and dry — a dry, clayey, or a sandy 

 soil, will not answer. I know of no vegetable that is so dif- 

 ficult to please with a soil, as the onion : though they will 

 grow well, yet they will not ripen, but hold green through- 

 out the fall, and many of them will be what are generally 



