If you prefer seed, sow, across beds four feet wide, in drills eight inches apart; young gardeners are apt to begrudge _room_—give it freely to everything, and it will repay you; when they come up, thin out to one for every inch; as you wish young and tender onions for your table, draw these, leaving, at least, one every five inches in the row. If your soil is deep and very rich, onions can be grown in one season from the seed as well as from the set—we try it almost every year and _never fail_, although told a hundred times: “You could do that in the old States, but it won’t do out here.” It had to do, and did do, and always will do, where there is no lazy men about; but nothing ever does well in a slack and lazy man’s garden; plants have an inveterate prejudice against such, and won’t grow; but he is a darling favorite among weeds.
The white or silver skin, and the yellow Portugal have been favorite kinds with us to raise from seed. They are tender, mild flavored, but do not keep as well as the _Red_. _Strong onions always keep better than mild ones._
If you prefer top-onion sets, or sets of any other kind, plant them out at the same distances, viz. eight inches between the row and five or six between the sets. Inexperienced gardeners are afraid that _little_ sets no bigger than a pea, will not do well. It is a mistake—they will make large onions; put them _all_ in, if they are sound. Plant the sets so that the top shall just appear above the surface.
If you plant out old onions for _seed_, let them be at least a foot apart and stake them when they begin to blossom. If you plant the _top-onion_ for sets you need not stake them, for they cannot shed out their seed if they fall over. It is not generally known that the same onions may be kept for seed for many years.
TRANSPLANTING.—All fruit-trees, most kinds of shade trees, shrubs, _hardy_ roses, honeysuckles, pinks, lilacs, peonies, etc., may be raised, divided, and transplanted in April unless your soil is _very wet_. All _hardy_ plants may be safely transplanted just as soon as the ground is dry enough to crumble freely—and not till then. In planting out shrubs, remember that they will _grow_; if you put them near together, for the sake of present effect, in a year or two they will be crowded. We set at ample distances and fill up the spaces with lilies, peonies, phlox, gladiolus, and herbaceous plants which are easily removed.