III 
CULTURAL VARIETIES 
‘JLTHOUGH but one species of edible asparagus 
has found its way into genera! cultivation, 
many varieties and strains are recognized. 
Up to within a comparatively recent period 
it was thought that there existed only one distinct 
kind, or variety, of asparagus. As lateas 1869so keen 
an observer as Peter Henderson believed that ‘‘ the 
asparagus of our gardens is confined to only one 
variety, and the so-called giant can be made gigantic 
or otherwise, just as we will it, and the purple top 
variety will become a green top whenever the compo- 
sition of the soil is not of the kind to develop the 
purple, and vice versa. All practical gardeners know 
how different soils and climates change the appear- 
ance of the same variety. Seeds of cabbage taxen 
from the same bag and sown at the same time, but 
planted outin soils of light sandy loam, heavy clayey 
loam, and peat or leaf-mold, will show such marked 
differences when at maturity as easily to be pro- 
nounced different sorts. This, no doubt, is the reason 
why the multitude of varieties of all vegetables, when 
planted side by side to test them, are so wonderfully 
reduced in number.”’ 
But after inspecting an acre of ordinary asparagus 
and an acre of Abraham Van Siclen’s Colossal—which 
was afterward introduced as Conover’s Colossal--at 
