me cultivators earth them up like Potatoes, but we prefer to
let the bulbs rise into the light, even by the removal of the earth, so
as to form a basin around each, taking care, of course, not to lay bare
the roots in so doing. When the planted bulbs have put forth a good head
of leaves, they form clusters of bulbs around them, and the best growth
is made in full daylight, the bulbs sitting on and not in the soil.

==The Onion Grub== (=Phorbia cepetorum=) is often very troublesome to the
crop, especially in its early stages, and its presence may be known by
the grass becoming yellow and falling on the ground. It will then be
found that the white portion, which should become the bulb, has been
pierced to the centre by a fleshy, shining maggot, a quarter of an inch
in length, this being the larva of an ashy-coloured, ill-looking,
two-winged fly. Where this plague has acquired such a hold as to be a
serious nuisance, care should be taken to clear out all the old store of
Onions instantly upon a sufficiency of young Onions becoming available
in spring, and to burn them without hesitation. If left to become garden
waste in the usual way, these old Onions do much to perpetuate and
augment the plague. A regular use of lime and soot will be found an
effectual preventive. Other remedies are suggested in the article on
Onion Fly, Page 420.

==PARSLEY==--=see= ==HERBS==, =page= 68

==PARSNIP==

==Pastinaca sativa==

The Parsnip is one of the most profitable roots the earth produces.
Probably its sweet flavour imposes a limit on its usefulness, but bad
cooking doubtless has much to answer for, the people in our great towns
being, in too many instances, quite ignorant of the proper mode of
cooking this nourishing root. When cut in strips, slightly boiled and
served up almost crisp, it is a poor article for human food; but when
cooked whole in such a way as to appear on the table like a mass of
marrow, it is at once a digestible dainty and a substantial food that
the people might consume more largely than they do, to their advantage.

The Parsnip requires only one special condition for its welfare, and
that is a piece of ground prepared for it by honest digging. Rich ground
it does not need, but the crop will certainly be the finer from a deep
fertile sandy loam than from a poor soil of any kind. But the one great
point is to trench the ground in autumn and lay it up rough for the
winter. Then at the very first opportunity