The Canadian Horticulturist. 



207 



ASPARAGUS CULTURE FOR CITY AND VILLAGE LOTS. 



a^^^^ii. 



SPARAGUS, considered as a vegetable, has some peculiarities 

 which distinguish it from other plants of the kitchen garden.. 

 The growing plant is very beautiful. Its feathery masses of 

 graceful foliage, its peculiar shade of green in summer, the 

 bright red berries contrasted with the rich yellow of the 

 maturing plant in the autumn, make it well worthy of a 

 place among ornamental plants, particularly in the shrub- 

 bery border. In cultivation the plant is injured rather than 

 benefited by frequent stirring of the soil ; all it asks is abun- 

 dant room, not less than five feet square to each plant, and liberal feeding. It 

 takes time to establish itself, but when this is well done a little care and free 

 manuring each year will keep it permanently and enormously productive, a 

 single plant under the Argenteuil system of cultivation having furnished thirty- 

 seven pounds of the choicest asparagus in a season. 



The beauty, the ease of culture, the permanency and productiveness of the 

 plants, and the fact that asparagus, even more than most vegetables, should be 

 used when perfectly fresh — should be cut and cooked the same hour — warrant 

 the cultivation of this plant in places where the attempt to grow other vegetables 

 might not be wise. A few plants can be intro- 

 duced with good effect in highly kept pleasure- 

 grounds. A few can be set in the corner of the 

 fence or beside the shed in places too contracted 

 to warrant the attempt to have a garden of any 

 kind. In fact, there are very few town and 

 village places that could not easily furnish the 

 family with an abundant supply of this vegetable 

 at a trtfling expenditure of labor, and without 

 detracting from the beauty or usefulness of the 



grounds. As a guide to those who may wish to undertake asparagus culture in 

 the way suggested, I give the cultural methods followed in the Argenteuil district 

 of France, which has the reputation of producing the finest asparagus in the 

 world. A considerable proportion of that grown there is the product, not of 

 asparagus farms, or even of fields and beds, but of single plants or clumps stand- 

 ing by themselves, or in groups of from five to twenty scattered here and there 

 in any open space thut may chance to be left in corners or between trees and 

 buildings. Wherever there is an unused bit of ground five feet in diameter, 

 which is not in dense shade or liable to be covered with water, there the Argen- 

 teuil gardener sticks in a plant, gives it good care, and is well repaid for his 



Fig. 964. 



labor. 



The method of cultivation is simple. The spot is put in good tilth and 



