106 
A KITCHEN GARDEN 
floor of a cool loft. When it becomes too cold to let 
them remain longer in this position without danger 
of freezing, I put them in peach baskets, the stripped 
sides of which allow a free circulation of air, and 
store them in a cool, well-ventilated cellar, where we 
try to keep the temperature just above freezing by 
admitting air whenever possible, as it takes but very 
little warmth to start them to growing, and then they 
soon become unfit for use. If the gardener saves his 
own seed, the finest and best-shaped onions should 
be laid aside for planting out in the spring, for this 
purpose. 
Where the crop is raised from sets it is not neces¬ 
sary, though quite desirable, to have the soil made 
as fine as for the seed bed. As the small onions are 
set in, planting at the proper distances apart, almost 
all the cultivation can be done with the narrow 
onion hoe, and if it is regularly attended to at proper 
intervals no hand work is necessary. The onion is 
a hardy bulb, and the sets can be planted as soon in 
the spring as the ground can be gotten into proper 
condition; this makes an important feature in the 
earliness of the crop, as the sets have several weeks 
the start over the onions raised from seed. For the 
very earliest onions, or those used when the bulb 
and neck are about of equal thickness early in the 
spring, and which go by the name of scallions, the 
sets are planted in October and allowed to remain in 
the ground all winter, so that they are ready for use 
almost as soon as the spring opens, two weeks’ growth 
sufficing to bring them to a proper size. Where the 
main garden crop of these fragrant bulbs is raised 
