32 THE BOOK OF ASPARAGUS 



the older ones. I need not'say how wrong this is. No 

 asparagus should be cut till the plants are three years 

 old, and it is better to wait even a year longer than this. 

 In Cornwall, under such treatment as I have advised, 

 good asparagus can be cut when the plants are three 

 years old. Still, I advocate for most counties another 

 season's growth. I know that some people consider that 

 the ground during this waiting period, should produce 

 early potatoes or kidney beans, but nothing of the kind 

 should be allowed. I said that when the manure has 

 been put under, no more can be applied till the plants 

 have run their race. This shows how absurd is the 

 "snatching" of crops, which is advocated by some 

 writers to satisfy their parsimonious clients. 



Really, the plants will speak for themselves as to 

 their fitness for cutting. If, after the second year of 

 planting the shoots are half an inch in diameter, we may 

 take it as an indication that all has gone well and that 

 the plants are strong enough to cut from. 



In two cases where my instructions were carried out, 

 after the first season's growth, the plants attained the 

 height of four and a half feet, and in the following 

 spring, shoots three-quarters of an inch in diameter 

 appeared, so that one of the growers cut liberally for 

 several weeks but did not continue after the first of 

 June. When I visited him in September of last year the 

 plants had grown to a height of eight and a half feet, so 

 that the cutting did not seem to have injured them. 



As to the number of years that asparagus plants will 

 live no limit can be fixed. I saw once some beds in a 

 grand old garden in Devonshire which had a history 

 of at least ninety years, and in Cornwall I know a bed, 

 the proprietor of which is probably forty years of age, 

 this bed having been planted by his father before the 

 present owner was born, and yet it still produces 

 splendid shoots which I have often exhibited to my 



