on agriculture and gardening than this--and be inserted in a book
which would be read by the farmer, instead of his amiable daughter. If
no one treats on the subject, it may appear in the next edition.
_Onions_--The Madeira white is best in market, esteemed softer
flavored, and not so fiery, but the high red, round hard onions are
the best; if you consult cheapness, the largest are best; if you
consult taste and softness, the very smallest are the most delicate,
and used at the first tables. Onions grow in the richest, highest
cultivated ground, and better and better year after year, on, the same
ground.
_Beets_, grow on any ground, but best on loom, or light gravel
grounds; the _red_ is the richest and best approved; the _white_ has a
sickish sweetness, which is disliked by many.
_Parsnips_, are a valuable root, cultivated best in rich old grounds,
and doubly deep plowed, _late sown_, they grow thrifty, and are not so
prongy; they may be kept any where and any how, so that they do not
grow with heat, or are nipped with frost; if frosted, let them thaw in
earth; they are richer flavored when plowed out of the ground in
April, having stood out during the winter, tho' they will not last
long after, and commonly more sticky and hard in the centre.
_Carrots_, are managed as it respects plowing and rich ground,
similarly to Parsnips. The yellow are better than the orange or red;
middling fiz'd, that is, a foot long and two inches thick at the top
end, are better than over grown ones; they are cultivated best with
onions, sowed very thin, and mixed with other seeds, while young or
six weeks after sown, especially if with onions on true onion ground.
They are good with veal cookery, rich in soups, excellent with hash,
in May and June.
_Garlicks_, tho' used by the French, are better adapted to the uses of
medicine than cookery.
_Asparagus_--The mode of cultivation belongs to gardening; your
business is only to cut and dress, the largest is best, the growth of
a day sufficient, six inches long, and cut just above the ground; many
cut below the surface, under an idea of getting tender shoots, and
preserving the bed; but it enfeebles the root: dig round it and it
will be wet with the juices--but if cut above ground, and just as the
dew is going off, the sun will either reduce the juice, or send it
back to nourish the root--its an excellent vegetable.
_Parsley_, of the three kinds, the thickest and branchiest is the
best, is sown among onions, or in a bed by itself, may be dryed for
winter use; tho' a method which I have experienced, is much better--In
September I dig my roots, procure an old thin stave dry cask, bore
holes an inch diameter in every stave, 6 inches asunder round the
cask, and up to the top--take first a half bushel of rich garden mold
and put into the cask, then run the roots through the staves, leaving
the branches outside, press the earth tight about the root within, and
thus continue on thro' the respective stories, till the cask is full;
it being filled, run an iron bar thro' the center of the dirt in the
cask and fill with water, let stand on the south and east side of a
building till frosty night, then remove it, (by slinging a rope round
the cask) into the cellar; where, during the winter, I clip with my
scissars the fresh parsley, which my neighbors or myself have occasion