In the Garden There are at least half a dozen
substitutes for the onion. Of these leeks are, of course, best known, and have been celebrated as a vegetable for centuries. For flavouring, chives have all the taste but none of the after-whiff that has surrounded the onion, in England, with what was once called a certain Cranfordian atmo- sphere, and its mauve heads of flowers are as charming as sea- pink. Cibbals, once a cottage favourite, is a kind of evergreen chives and therefore useful for winter. No one needs an intro- duction to shallots, which it is now time to plant; but the tree- onion, which grows small bulbs on both stem and root, is a little-known variety. Nor is the so-called Welsh onion well known. Introduced into England in the early seventeenth cen- tury, it is a native of Siberia—a kind of perennial leek, with tubular leaves, the small side-leeks being picked as required, while the main plant is left to grow on. There is also a Japanese form, Nebuka, said to be excellent. H. E. Bans.
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