ASPARAGUS “*CULEURE. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The popularity which asparagus has achieved during recent yeurs 
is remarkable. Formerly a luxury on the tables of the rich, it is now, 
during the season, a vegetable seen daily upon the tables of people of 
moderate or even of smallincomes. It is also frequently recommended 
as an article of diet for the sick and convalescent. 
The fact that asparagus appears in the market at a time of the year 
in which few or no other fresh vegetables are available has had much 
to do with its increased consumption in our cities. It can also be easily 
preserved by canning, the product in this form being almost equal to 
the fresh article, and this has increased its use, being as it were a length- 
ening of the season. Growth is also easily forced out of its regular 
season, thus making the vegetable available for use from the beginning 
of December throughout the entire winter and almost until the regular 
spring season appears, but this product of the gardener’s skill is natu- 
rally quite expensive. Field culture, too, is one of the most interesting 
innovations of the present age, and one which has been attended with 
the most striking success. 
Within the last few years the cultivation of asparagus has been 
greatly extended, yet the demand is still greater than the supply, an 
indication that there is still room for an extension of beds by those 
already in the business and for the establishment of beds by those 
who have as yet given no attention to this branch of gardening. Every 
kitchen garden should have its bed, from which the table may be sup- 
plied with this most delightful and wholesome vegetable, and it is hardly 
to be doubted that a diffusion of knowledge concerning the later and 
improved methods of culture, with their reduced cost and lightened 
work, would do much to increase the popularity of the vegetable, and 
bring about its cultivation in gardens where it has never found a place, 
but where its introduction would add greatly to the present diet of the 
family. 
HISTORY. 
The use of asparagus is almost as old as the hills and marshes on 
which the ancient writers say the two varieties of their day grew. 
First as a medicinal plant and then as a vegetable it was known to the 
Romans. Writers of those days praise its virtues with enthusiasm, 
and the epicure counted it one of the delights of his table. For want 
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