6 
of a better way, the sprouts were preserved by drying, as is done by 
thrifty farmers’ wives to-day to lengthen the natural season. So far 
had the gardeners of that day progressed in its improvement that 
Pliny was able to record spears of it weighing three to the pound. 
Once made familiar with the use of the native article by the invad- 
ing Roman soldiery, the Gauls, Germans, and Britons appreciated its 
value, and it soon became one of their most prized vegetables. Early 
writers on horticultural subjects leave no room for doubt that as early 
as the first part of the sixteenth century—four hundred years ago— 
the use of asparagus was not only general in nearly every part of 
Europe, but that in some parts its development was such as to put the 
so-called ‘‘colossals” and ‘‘mammoths” of the present day upon their 
mettle, since spears weighing over one-half pound each were not of 
uncommon occurrence. 
In France, Holland, Germany, Hungary, and England asparagus 
was both gathered by the peasantry in its wild state and carried to 
the towns for the tables of the prosperous burghers and grown in the 
landlord’s garden for his own table. 
The early settlers of America, familiar with its use, brought the 
seed of the plant with them, and, though not native to this country, it 
found the climate congenial. John Josselyn, gent., in ‘‘ New England 
Varieties,” etc., published in London in 1672, says, in a list of ** Plants 
which have sprung up since the settlers planted and fed cattle in these 
parts,” that ‘‘asparagus thrives exceedingly.” 
Although a ‘‘cosmopolitan,” there are localities where its skillful 
culture has produced such results, both as to size of spears and average 
yield, that they are noted the world over as asparagus-growing centers. 
Many of the States of the eastern coast, from Charleston, S. C., to 
Boston, Mass., of the Mississippi Valley, and of the Pacific Slope, pro- 
duce a great amount of asparagus, but it is in Long Island and New 
Jersey, owing probably to their proximity to the larger seaboard 
cities, that much attention has been given to its cultivation, and there 
its culture has reached a high state of development. 

BOTANY AND VARIETIES.’ 
The genus Asparagus belongs to the Lily-of-the-Valley family. It 
includes about 100 species, all native in the Old World. A few spe- 
cies, including the familiar asparagus vine and the smilax of the florist, 
are in common cultivation for ornamental purposes, but most of them, 
having no recognized economic value, are known only to botanists. 
All of the various forms and varieties of the vegetable, now in common 
cultivation under the name of asparagus and sold in the markets as 
‘“‘orass,” have been derived from one species, Asparagus officinalis. 
“The first paragraph under this heading was prepared by Lyster H. Dewey, an 
assistant in the Division of Botany, United States Department of Agriculture. 

