PERMANENT PLANTATIONS 17 



ground, so as to get it fine enough for working out the 

 drills. 



Beds or Plots. These are the two principal systems of 

 growing, and the choice between them should depend 

 on circumstances, not on what others do; for blind 

 copying of neighbours is the cause of much of the 

 failure in every branch of gardening. We must study 

 our position and work accordingly. Why do so many 

 people grow asparagus in beds ? I mean the old orthodox 

 beds, of three or four rows in a bed, the rows eighteen 

 inches apart, and the plants a foot apart in the rows. 

 In many gardens the plants are even closer together than 

 this. I confess that I have planted a good many such 

 beds. I confess also that I did this often because so 

 many other people did likewise. I do not wish to sneer 

 at my predecessors, for probably they had reason for 

 the course they adopted, whereas I had none. However, 

 sometimes one does wake up and become bold enough 

 to think for oneself. Such an awakening came to me in 

 the matter of asparagus culture, and, as I am going to 

 advocate in the following pages one particular style of 

 planting, I will first explain my prejudice against the 

 system of planting in beds. Some folks will say that 

 beds can be easily tended, others will say that it is easy 

 to gather the shoots. There is this other alleged ad- 

 vantage with the bed system, namely, that you can clean 

 out your alleys after manuring the beds, and evenly 

 spread the soil over the surface. 



Now all these contentions I consider fallacious, thus, 

 no doubt, calling down thunderbolts on my head. The 

 greater ease of rendering attention, the facility for 

 gathering the crops, the practicability of annually 

 cutting out the alley and throwing the soil thus spread 

 over the beds, all these things I consider worthy of small 

 notice. 



Before we discuss the subject further, the reader should 



