Supplement to the journal of Horticulture, March 24, 1892. 
Marcii 21,1891 ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 213 
SUCCESS WITH ONIONS. 
Many are the complaints made by amateurs and cottagers re¬ 
specting the failure of their annual spring Onion crop. Some say 
the seed was bad, others attribute it to a certain kind of manure, 
while a great many blame the soil they grew them in. This, no 
doubt, is partly correct ; but it is notin the soil itself, it is in the 
preparation. I think there is no vegetable except the Potato more 
valued by cottagers, certainly with none do they spend more time 
in trying to succeed. Some have adopted the ways and means sug¬ 
gested. My advice to those who have succeeded was to bastard 
trench the land in the autumn, incorporating at the time well 
decayed manure, also burnt refuse and soot, letting the land so 
treated remain until February, and forking it over on a dry day, 
afterwards treading or rolling the soil if light, but not if at all 
heavy, levelling the ground with a rake to make the soil fine to 
receive the seed, as nothing in my opinion looks so unsightly in a 
garden as an uneven Onion bed. Previous to drawing the drills, 
1 inch deep and 1 foot apart, I find it a good plan to scatter sifted 
burnt ashes and soot with a mixture of Thomson’s or any other 
good artificial manure, to be raked in after the seed is sown. 
Some prefer beds 4 feet wide with paths between, and that may be 
good where the garden is large, but where space is limited I advise 
drawing the drills 1 foot apart, sowing plenty of seed evenly in the 
drills, afterwards covering the seed with a rake, edging the top and 
bottom of the bed to make all neat, not forgetting at the time of 
sowing to insert a good sized label with a name to each sort, also 
the date. After a time, according to the weather, the seedlings 
will appear, and as soon as they are large enough my plan is to go 
over the whole bed, each man taking one sort and lifting with a 
dibber and replanting to fill vacancies (if any) at 6 inches apart, 
at the same time drawing out all not required to be bedded in for 
use, or to be left to fill any vacancies that may afterwards occur. 
When the transplanted Onions have taken well to the soil I like to 
give the whole space between the seedlings a careful hoeing to 
lighten the soil and admit air. We can almost see the Onions grow 
after that. Very little work is then required besides keeping weeds 
in check, which are best done by the hand just previous to turning 
down the tops to help to ripen the bulbs. I gerierally give a good 
soaking of a mixture of manure, salt, and soot, in a liquid state (if 
at all dry), afterwards lifting the bulbs, and weighting each sort 
when the tops have been taken off the bulbs. Any cool Peach 
house or dry open shed is a good place to finish the drying in pre¬ 
vious to tying them in bunches of seven or eight, which can be 
done any wet day, afterwards hanging them up in a dry, airy shed 
to be used as required. 
I grow all pickling Onions by themselves, and sow these in May. 
The Queen is a gem for pickling, and is well worth growing in 
quantity as it is soon off the land. The sorts I have found best 
are—first, Yeitch’s Main Crop ; it is a splendid keeper, of 
good shape and hardy constitution, also a heavy cropper. _ It 
yielded with me last year at the rate of 26 lbs. of Onions 
to the square yard, or 25 cwt. from 104 square yards of land, some 
dealers fetching them at 6s. per cwt. Other sorts excellent to grow 
are Defiance, Eousham Park, James’ Keeping, Banbury Improved, 
Bedfordshire Champion, only surpassed by the first named variety, 
Reading, Brown Globe, Giant Zittau, a grand sort when true, 
Danver’s Yellow, good for early use, Nuneham Park, and White 
Spanish for cooking whole. All my Onions were grown last year 
on land facing east.— John Chinnery. 
PREPARING YOUNG VINES FOR PLANTING. 
Having very recently superintended the planting of some 
Vines prepared by two different methods, I am led to send you 
a few words on this subject. Probably there is not a system or 
method in the whole round of horticultural practice so obstinately 
stereotyped as that of preparing young Vines for planting as 
practised by the trade and the majority of private growers ; nor is 
there anything in which there is more room for a change that 
would be advantageous in all respects. As long as I can remember, 
and probably before that time, the practice has been to shift Vines 
intended for “ planters ” into 10-inch pots, and sometimes into a 
larger size, growing and trying to ripen them to the length of 
7 feet, or more than that. Such pots are much larger than are 
necessary to produce the best possible description of “ planting 
Vines.” The evils of this large pot system are almost invariably 
aggravated by most careless and inefficient drainage, a too rich 
soil, and the application of bottom heat. This combination of 
circumstances produces long-jointed wood, that may look strong, 
but really is not so when condition is not reckoned by mere bulk. 
The character of the roots thus produced are long, thick, and 
fibreless ; having been surfeited in their infancy they are anything 
but greedy feeders when placed in their permanent feeding 
quarters. Other unfavourable conditions to which the young 
plants are subjected are their being grown in too crowded a way, 
and sometimes too early in autumn turned out of doors, where the 
process of maturing is never perfected. Yet another injurious 
ordeal is forced on the victims by, in many cases, placing them for 
the winter in some shed, and their soil allowed to get dusty and 
dry, causing the destruction of any fibry roots they may have 
formed. 
Am I wrong in saying that all this is irrational practice, and 
not in keeping with this age of advanced horticulture ? The 
method that my own experience and observation lead me to 
recommend as a departure from this stereotyped one is not to 
shift the plants into pots larger than 6 or, at the very utmost, 
7-inch sizes, not to plunge them in bottom heat, not to put any 
FIG. 32.—VINE FOR PLANTING. 
animal manure into the soil, and to use a light rather than a heavy 
loam ; but after they have established themselves in the pots to 
feed them at the surface with some approved manure, now so easily 
obtainable. These conditions, in conjunction with efficiently 
drained pots, will not be productive of long and strong fibre¬ 
less roots, but instead a pot full of roots of a very different 
sort, the top growth being short-jointed, stout, and well filled 
with material available for a good start when the planting time 
has come. Then as to top growth, the extreme length aimed at 
is quite superfluous. At the utmost 4 feet of a right character is 
ample length. 
Material points gained by this lesser pot and bulk of plant 
are ease in packing and lightness in transit, besides the more 
restricted space in which a given number can be grown ; and 
