Wood-ashes and bone-dust
are excellent fertilizers, and should be sown on the surface on
the row as soon as planted, and gradually worked in by weeding and
cultivation during the growing season. Manure from the pigsty,
wherein weeds, litter, sods, muck, etc., have been thrown freely
during the summer, may be spread broadcast over the onion bed in
the autumn, and worked in deeply, like the product of the
barnyard. The onion bed can scarcely be made too rich as long as
the manure is not applied in its crude, unfermented state at the
time of planting. Then, if the seed is put in very early, it grows
too strongly and quickly for insects to do much damage.
Varieties.--Thompson in his English work names nineteen varieties
with many synonyms; Henderson offers the seed of thirteen
varieties; Gregory, of seventeen kinds. There is no need of our
being confused by this latitude of choice. We find it in the great
majority of fruits and vegetables offered by nurserymen and
seedsmen. Each of the old varieties that have survived the test of
years has certain good qualities which make it valuable,
especially in certain localities. Many of the novelties in
vegetables, as among fruits, will soon disappear; a few will take
their place among the standard sorts. In the case of the kitchen,
as well as in the fruit, garden, I shall give the opinion of men
who have a celebrity as wide as the continent for actual
experience, and modestly add occasionally some views of my own
which are the result of observation.
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