No. 6: DEPART^AIENT OF AGRICULTURE. 243 



ADDltESS 



By C. C. Hulsart, Matawan, New Jersey. 



(Exhibiting a bunch of New Jersey asparagus) 



It seems to me the easiest thing in the world for a 

 Jerseymau to get into trouble. Now I thought it would be rather 

 nice to bring out a bunch of our Jersey asparagus and I intended 

 it for friend Martin, though 1 Jiaven't told him so yet, then he goes 

 to work and springs Ihis on me, Now it is just like — friend Camp- 

 bell will bear me out in \\hat 1 am going to say — the early chicken 

 that gets out in the morning and goes and catches a worm and 

 brings it back and somebody else takes it away from him. Some 

 years ago 1 traveled over the State of New Jersey with friend Camp- 

 bell in h'armeis' Institute work and he was just as enthusiastic when 

 he was in NeAV Jersey as he appears to be this afternoon in Craw- 

 ford county. But there is one thing he cjinnot do, he cannot beat 

 New Jersey sand growing asparagus and 1 think he knows it. You 

 haven't the soil, not that I have seen so far in Crawford county; 

 you know that is the beginning. Jt is practically impossible, friends, 

 to grow that kind of asparagus on clay land, not that it might not 

 be grown as large, but it will be all sorts of shapes and it will 

 come through the soil turned over and leaning several different 

 ways from Sunday. You must have asparagus soil to grow that 

 kind of asparagus. Furthermore, you must have seed from which 

 to plant. Now, everybody knows that; what I am driving at, is just 

 this, you can't go to a seedsman that is dealing in seed commercially 

 and get seed that will grow uniform asparagus. 



A Member: Or anything else. 



MR. HULSART: Right you are. Now I'm going to give j^ou two 

 or three examples. The first bed of asparagus that 1 ever grew 

 in my life I ajiplied to an acquaintance for some asparagus seed 

 from his plantation. The answer that I received was that if he 

 had any left when he Avas done planting, he would be glad to supply 

 me. Now, I was naturally in a little hurry and I could not wait 

 on that fellow, and so I went to the largest seed liouse in the City 

 of New York and bought five pounds of asi)aragus seed and brought 

 them home and planted them in the nursery bed and I grew the 

 plants for a year. Then I set the plants in two acres and a half of 

 land and manured it as well as I could afford to. put on commercial 

 fertilizer and attended to it three or four years, lost about seven 

 hundred dollars and then plowed it up and had everything you ever 

 heard tell of from the old asparagus shoots along the seashore to 

 overything you ever hoard iell of. except what I bought and paid 

 for, I didn't have a single bit left of true Palmetto. The seed that pro- 

 duced that bunch came from the man I spoke of, the following year; 

 that was cut yesterday forenoon from a bed now starting on its six- 



