MARKET GARDENING. 91 



Question. I would like to inquire if you have litid any 

 trouble with the roots bunching and the plant getting out 

 of the rows ? 



Mr. Moore. If you examine the asparagus root care- 

 fully, you will find that the crown is inclined to spread in 

 one way. It makes a little crown as wide as your two 

 fingers, and so spreads in one way. If those roots are all 

 laid in very carefully pointed one way, they will spread 

 one way in the row ; but of course it mast be carefully 

 done or it will run out. Beds usually, in the course of ten 

 or twelve years, run over the ground. I do not know that 

 that does much harm in an old bed. If the plough occa- 

 sionally catches the crown of a plant and tears some of it 

 up, it does no harm. 



Mr. Everett. Is it essential to change the bed in which 

 you have planted asparagus once in ten or fifteen years, 

 or will it run generation after generation in the same spot 

 of ground? 



Mr. Moore. I suppose it could be grown any length of 

 time in the same piece of ground, but that will depend a 

 good deal upon how it has been treated previously — whether 

 it has been spoiled by too long cutting. But if it has been 

 well handled, it will undoubtedly run fifteen years or more, 

 and if it shows any signs of dying out, it is better to kill it 

 out ; and when you attempt to plough up a green asparagus 

 bed, you have got a tough job before you. 



Question. How do you cut it ? ' 



Mr. Moore. We cut it with what are called " asparagus 

 knives," cutting it under the ground perhaps two inches, 

 took a bed of asparagus a few j^ears ago that had been 

 cut up to the 4th of July, because we were going to kill 

 it, and we cut it as long as we could get anything for the 

 asparagus we were cutting, and put a dressing of manure 

 on, ploughed it over, furrowed it about four feet apart, and 

 planted it with sweet corn, run a cultivator both ways, and 

 before the middle of September the asparagus was killed in 

 that piece, without any trouble. We cut the sweet corn off 

 and then seeded it clown to grass, and it remained in grass, 

 giving very good crops, for four or five years. Then I 

 ploughed it up. I found I could plough it up easy enough, 



