240 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
insist on the polic}' of sowing in autumn, and tliat is why we treat 
upon the subject now, and lead oft’ with the remark that “the year 
of the onion begins in August.” 
The onion is a profitable plant, in every sense of the word, ami 
therefore should be generously dealt with. Many of us might 
endure, without any excruciating pang, the loss of a crop of aspara- 
gus, delicious as it is ; or of carrots or parsnips, undeniably useful ; 
but to lose the onion crop would be a heavy blow, and it w'ould be 
especially felt, for our sakes, by the sweet salads on sunny spring 
days, and on hot summer nights, aud by the ducklings that had been 
fattened near the herb garden, and had known the smell of sage 
from their earliest days upwards. The three graces of the kitchen- 
garden are the potato, the cabbage, and the onion ; and they are 
also qualified to play the parts of the three strong men, for which 
performance the potato should be regarded as Atlas, the cabbage as 
. Hercules, and the onion as Milo of Crotona. But 3’ou want in- 
formation ; ah ! really I had almost forgotten that ; but, after all, 
it may be that you have obtained a bit already, and if not so, we 
suggest that you think about it, with a view to sowing onions within 
ten or twenty days of this first of August. 
Soil fok Onions. — There is much too much said in the books on 
this subject. Opinions are less valuable than facts, but I shall ofter 
an opinion to this eft'ect : that the onion obtains a very large pro- 
portion of its sustenance from the atmosphere, and support the 
opinion by the fact that onions may be gi’i»vvn for several years in 
succession on the same soil, with little or no help from manure. A 
collection of some thirty varieties have been grown in our trial- 
ground on the same plot for fifteen years in succession, -without 
one failure, except in 18G0, when t!ie excessive rain made them gross 
and thick-necked, and we had to dry oft’ the crop in an oven in the 
month of October, aud they kept very badly. On this plot, spring 
and autumn sowing have been systematically practised, the plots 
devoted to spring-sown onions being occupied all winter with 
collards or w inter greens, planted immediately after the removal of 
the onions, and the ground prepared for each crop by being well 
dug, one spit deep, and a thin sprinkling of Lawson’s phospho- 
guauo put in at the bottom of the trench as the work proceeded. 
We have long been convinced that the diseases to which onions are 
subject are more frequently caused by excessive manuring than by 
any inherent tendency of lire plant to disease, or any extravagant 
Itmchant for it by the insects that occasionally decimate the crop. 
There is no soil so good for the onion as that of an old, -well- 
cultivated garden. A newly-broken pasture, on which jrotatoes or 
brassicas would do well, should not be selected for onions. The 
ground having been long cultivated should be thoroughly -well dug, 
and as a rule, it is sufiicient to dig one spit deep ; but if the second 
spit is good, double digging may be useful ; and wdienever double 
digging may be safely practised, it should be resorted to, for it pays 
well to provide a deep-rooting plant with a deep, well-pulverized 
seed-bed. In a rotation system, onions should follow celery, the 
laud being previously manured for the celerj-, and not manured at 
