THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 59 



final planting, though some recommend them to he but two years. 

 The former are the strongest, and therefore will bear cutting soonest. 

 It is not advisable to have them older, or they may refuse the removal. 

 The best time to make the beds is September, and the planting done 

 in October ; but presuming circumstances have prevented autumn 

 planting, the operation must be performed in February or March. 

 The beds should be made on a piece of dry rich and light earth, 

 with a heavy coat of dung trenched in, and the ground marked off 

 into beds of the required size. Narrow beds are preferable, because 

 the sun penetrates them more effectually, and the buds are con- 

 sequently earlier. We would never plant more than three rows in 

 each bed, and, therefore, they need not be more than three feet wide, 

 which will leave the plants nine inches from each other, and the 

 same distance from the outsides. Unless the ground is naturally 

 wet and springy, it is not necessary to elevate the beds at the planting, 

 but is preferable to make them on the level, merely throwing about 

 three incbes of the soil from the alleys over the plants when they 

 are in their places. The alleys should be a foot and a half 

 wide, and at the corners of the beds stout stakes may be driven in, 

 that at the future dressings it may be easy to tell where the outsides 

 should be. The beds will only require to be kept free from weeds 

 until the following autumn, when a good dressing of manure should 

 be given them, first forking up the surface of the bed, then laying on 

 the dung, and covering it with soil from the alleys ; and this should 

 be repeated annually, and may be called the winter dressing. In 

 spring the beds should be carefully forked over, so as to loosen all 

 the soil without injuring the crowns of the plants, and the soil raked 

 down into the alleys till the plants are about an inch below the 

 surface : this requires to be done just before the plants begin to 

 grow — if done sooner they may be injured by frost, and if left till 

 a later period some will get broken by the rake. Asparagus should 

 not be cut till the third season after planting, nor should the cutting 

 be continued too long, or, as a matter of course, the roots are greatly 

 weakened, and the produce of the following year will be inferior. 

 At the autumn dressing, after the plants have attained a size and 

 strength sufficient to become useful, salt may be used with the 

 manure to great advantage, laying a moderately thin coat of it along 

 with the dung over the whole of the bed, and covering in the usual 

 way. In establishments of any pretensions Asparagus forms a 

 considerable item among the forced productions. For this purpose it 

 is usual to take old roots from the beds in the autumn, and at 

 intervals, proportionate to the required supply, hotbeds of moderate 

 strength are made, and when the heat becomes steady at 55°, the bed 

 is covered with light earth and the roots placed thereon ; an erroneous 

 practice then follows of earthing up the shoots as they grow, in 

 order, it is said, to make them look white and tender. It is altogether 

 a mistake to value Asparagus for its blanched steins, and whether 

 grown in the ordinary bed out-of-doors, or at an earlier season as a 

 forced vegetable, as much length and substance should be got above 

 ground as possible, for it is only the green portion that can be eaten, 

 the blanched part being totally useless. We would advise, instead 



February. 



