Apr.] 



THE CULINARY GARDEN. 



141 



ness of an inch and a half. Press the mould which covers 

 them gently down with the back of a spade, and give them a 

 gentle watering over head; prefer to cover with light sandy- 

 loam or vegetable mould. In a few days, if showery weather 

 intervene, the whole crop will take root in the ground. If 

 the weather be diy, let them be watered every afternoon, with 

 a strong garden engine, which can be done without treading 

 the ground. Onions sown on slight hot-beds may be trans- 

 planted in the same manner. 



Transplanting onions is by no means a new feature in gar- 

 dening. The Neat-House gardeners of Battersea, adopted 

 this practice at a very early period, and it was not unknown 

 to the cottagers in many parts of England. It has, however, 

 been revived by Knight, Warre, M'Donald and others, and 

 deserves to be more generally adopted. Knight's opinion 

 is, that " Every bulbous-rooted plant, and indeed every plant 

 which produces leaves, and lives longer than one year, gene- 

 rates in one season, the sap or vegetable blood which com- 

 poses the leaves and roots of the succeeding spring ; and when 

 the sap has accumulated during one or more seasons, it is 

 ultimately expended in the production of blossoms and seeds. 

 This reserved sap is deposited in and composes in a great 

 measure the bulb ; and moreover, the quantity accumulated, 

 as well as the period required for its accumulation, vary greatly 

 in the same species of plant, under more or less favourable 

 circumstances." 



" Thus the onion, in the south of Europe, acquires a much 

 larger size in a sino^le season, than in the colder climate of 

 England ; but under the following mode of culture, two sum- 

 mers in England produce nearly the effect of one in the 

 southern parts of Europe, and the onion assumes nearly the 

 form and size of those thence imported. Spanish or Portu- 

 guese onions are sown at the usual period in the spring, very 

 thick, and in poor soil, generally under the shade of a fruit- 

 tree ; and in such situations, the bulbs in the autumn are 

 rarely found much to exceed the size of a large pea. These 

 are then taken from the ground, and preserved till the suc- 

 ceeding spring, when they are planted at equal distances from 

 each other, and they afford plants possessing much greater 



