716 
Crops for Pickling and Preserving, 
the peas, the land seems to be in favourable condition for oniona 
the latter will be sown, but the land will even then receive 
40 or more tons of dung per acre. 
In a well-known book on gardening, from which quotations 
are frequently made, it is stated that a poor soil is necessary 
for producing the small firm bulbs required for pickling. This 
is distinctly wrong, for the land should be made exceedingly 
rich, and the size of the onion controlled by thick seeding. The 
manurial dressing previously mentioned, as followed by Mr. 
Cooper, is by no means excessive, and occasionally the application 
of dung may amount to GO tons per acre. This is, of course, 
very expensive, as London dung, fifty miles out, costs 5s. 9d. per 
ton at the station, to which has to be added the cost of carting 
and applying to the land. 
In connection with London dung, it is worth noting that 
onions to which saw-dust dung is applied are much more liable 
to attacks of wire-worm than are those for which straw-dung is 
used. Where the presence of wire-worm is suspected, it is usual to 
grow a crop of mustard, and to dress the land with gas-lime before 
sowing the onion seed ; this is generally found sufficient to 
check the pest. If the land is in such good heart, from 
previous manuring, that dung is not considered necessary, 100 
bushels of soot are almost invariably sown during winter, while 
the land lies in the furrow. 
Freedom from weeds is such an important matter that, where 
market-garden-farming is practised, the stubbles are never used 
as sheep-runs, but the land is broadshared or skimmed imme- 
diately after harvest to prevent seeding ; or the land is at once 
broken up to be made into a seed-bed for immediate sowing. 
The cost of cleaning onions is so great that, even under favourable 
circumstances, it rarely amounts to less than 51. per acre, from 
17. to 5L 10s. being the usual range of prices. Mr. King once 
pointed out to me a field which he said cost 20/. for weeding 
the first time he grew onions on it, but which, owing to thorough 
cleaning and the prevention of weeds from seeding, cost only 
30s. an acre the last time he took onions upon it. 
In ordinary cases the land is broken up as soon as the previous 
crop is out of the way, and any filth is at once cleared off. It is 
allowed to lie through winter, and dung is carted on when there 
is sufficient frost, but the land is not disturbed until a favour- 
able opportunity occurs early in the new year. It is then 
worked most thoroughly, and brought down to a fine but solid 
tilth. An onion tilth cannot be too fine, as the seed germinates 
more thoroughly and more evenly the finer the soil. As it will 
not germinate if sown too deeply, a rough surface would result 
