114 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[Mar, 



out in a warm border, or at the bottom of a wall, and will be 

 in fruit sooner, and yield a more prolific crop, than those 

 planted in the open border in the beginning of the month. 

 Make choice of a dry day for planting the crop in the open air, 

 and plant on the surface, in strong soils, as recommended for 

 peas ; cover three inches, and leave the covering in the form of 

 a ridge, so as to throw the rain off, as they are very tender, and 

 apt to rot in the ground. For a full crop, see April. 



PLANTING POTATO-ONIONS. 



See December and January. 



SOWING ONIONS. 



Onions require a rich mellow soil, on a dry subsoil, and are 

 an exception to the general rule of never cropping the same 

 ground successively with the same plant. Some gardeners 

 sow onions on the same piece of ground for many years, and 

 the market-gardeners at Hexham sow their onions on the 

 same gi'ound for twenty or thirty years successively, but an- 

 nually manure the soil. After the ground is dug, the manure 

 is spread on the surface, in a very rotten state, and the onion- 

 seed is sown upon the manure, and covered over with mould 

 from the alleys : by this method, they produce fine crops in 

 almost all seasons. Indeed, so general is this practice, that it 

 would require much reasoning to persuade them to the con- 

 trary. Onions must naturally act (to a certain extent) as an 

 exhauster of the gi'ound on which they grow, at least of those 

 parts of the ground from which they derive their principal 

 nourishment ; yet we find the same piece of ground for twenty 

 years producing ex-cellent crops. If the ground be prepared 

 as advised in February, which is to manure it in autumn, 

 and to rough dig it, which is to be done by digging in the 

 compost manure, and laying the ground up as rough as pos- 

 sible, so as to present as large a portion of surface to the 

 action of the fi'ost and rain, as can be done, it becomes to a 

 certain degi*ee renewed, as the fibrous parts of onions, which 

 are, correctly speaking, their roots, penetrate only a few inches 



