
. 
] 
r 
7 
the action of the frosts should kill the plants. This fear has been 
allayed. Asparagus roots will never be hurt by frost as long as the 
crown is covered with a layer of soil 2 inches deep. (Lebceuf.) 
Early in the spring of each year, after the plants are old enough to 
cut, there must be a ridge made over the rows to blanch the shoots, if 
white asparagus is to be cut; and once ridging is not suflicient, but 
after the spears begin to appear the ridges will need renewing every 
week or ten days during the cutting season, as the rains beat them 
down and the sun bakes a crust upon the top. 
With a1-horse cultivator go between the rows, and then with a 2-horse 
disk wheel cultivator with two disks on each side go astride each row, 
throwing up fresh soil upon the ridge. A 12-inch disk on the inside 
next the ridge, with a 20-inch one on the outside, makes a very effective 
implement, especially for rather stiff land; but a homemade ridger, 
formed of two heavy oak boards shod with tire iron, sloping upward 
and backward, attached to a pair of cultivator wheels, works very suc- 
cessfully in the light sandy soil of eastern Long Island. Some growers 
leave these ridges undisturbed until late fall and even early spring, 
but it is better practice to plow them down and run a harrow in both 
directions crosswise over the field immediately after ceasing to cut and 
before the tops are allowed to develop. At this time an application 
of well-rotted stable manure, bone and potash, or liquid manure is in 
order. 
The grower of green asparagus has about the same work, less the 
ridging and plowing down. Asitis necessary to keep down all weeds, 
some hoeing may be necessary as supplementary to a free use of the 
1-horse cultivator. After the cutting season, a cut-away harrow run 
twice diagonally across the rows loosens up the soil and destroys a vast 
number of weeds without injury to the crowns, although some spears 
may be broken off. 
Soon after the tops are allowed to develop they become bushy enough 
to shade the ground and prevent the growth of weeds; so little work 
will be required, if the weeds have been pretty well killed by the 
harrowing suggested above, until the end of the growing season. 
_ The bushes should be cut as soon as the berries are fully colored, as 
the growth will be sufficiently matured so that no injury will be done 
the roots by removing the tops, thus avoiding a further drain upon the 
roots to mature the seed, and preventing the dropping of seed, followed 
by the springing up of innumerable young asparagus plants. 
All brush should be promptly collected and burned, that there may 
be no lodging places for insects and diseases. In case the fields were 
not leveled, harrowed, and manured at the close of the cutting season, 
now is a convenient time to perform this work, although if the soil is 
rather too moist it is well to leave the surface firm, that the winter 
rains may runoff rather than penetrate to the already too damp subsoil 
around the roots. 
75814— Bull. 61—09———_8 
