MONTHLY CALENDAR. 461 



ground is kept clean till Novemberj and cropped with celery planted in well- 

 dunged trenches six feet apart, with two or three rows of lettuces or coleworts 

 between, for the market-gardeners do not mould up celery until it is well 

 advanced and 18 inches high, so that there is time for a crop of cole- 

 worts or lettuces to come off. When celery is removed, the ground is cropped 

 with winter greens, and again cleared off by the 1st of March, when it is 

 again dunged and trenched, and sown with onions ; sometimes with lettuces 

 planted in the beds as well as in the alleys. When the onions come o£F, the 

 ground is again trenched, and again planted with cabbages or coleworts. 

 Next spring a crop of cauliflowers, gherkins, cucumbers, or French beans, 

 will probably be taken off ; but the grand point is to keep the ground con- 

 stantly occupied, to see that every inch is cropped all the year round, that the 

 boundaiy-hedges are in good order, very dwarf, and without ditches. 



1382. It has probably struck many as an unusual thing to crop the fruit- 

 garden and orchard, as the market gardeners of Fulham and Chiswick do. 

 All the large plantations of apples, pears, and plums, of which Mr. Fitch alone 

 has fifty acres at Fulham, have every young shoot .made during the summer 

 pruned down to two or three buds from last years' wood, after the manner of 

 currant-bushes ; in this way they look well, and bear enormous crops, while 

 the ground under the trees is cropped with rhubarb, currants, gooseberries ; 

 and during the winter with coleworts and spring cabbages. Even the aspara- 

 gus-haum is cvit down, the ground is forked over, and it is planted with cole- 

 worts, alleys and all, as are the rhubarb-beds when the leaves die down. 



1383. Another way market gardeners have of increasing seakale, is to 

 cut off all the thongs, and at taking-up time, and in November, 

 the small prongs or end-roots are at once cut into four pieces and laid 

 together in a heap for the winter. In February they are deposited thickly in 

 beds and covered an inch deep with mould ; when they sprout, the ground 

 being prepared, they are planted out and treated as above. This plan it is 

 said produces the finest plants, as the whole vigour is left in the root, when, 

 cut off in winter. 



1384. Of course, under a system like this, all liquid manure is carefully 

 economized and conveyed to tanks, whence it can be distributed over the 

 ground when required ; generally, however, being disti-ibuted on the ground 

 before digging, under the impression, according to Mr. Cuthill, that applying 

 sewage- water after the crop is in fills up the pores of the earth, and prevents 

 the heat and air reaching the roots. 



1385. The system of growing asparagus is as follows : — When the frames 

 are all removed, the forcing-trenches, which are two feet deep, are filled with 

 hot dung, and planting for forcing commences. The seakale-roots are dug up, 

 all the small buds round the main eye are pared off, a furrow is cut out with 

 the spade across the bed, and the roots are put in as thickly as possible. The next 

 furrow is cut out four inches from the first, and planted in the same manner. 

 The planting finished, from four to six inches of straw is placed over the 

 crowns ; the beds are hooped over, and straw placed over the hoops. "In this 



