16 THE BOOK OF VEGETABLES 



one foot if possible when the plants have well started, 

 or to one plant at each hill. 



Give clean culture during the season, gradually fill- 

 ing in the trenches to about half "their depth. In the 

 fall fill them completely. For the sake of clean culture 

 it is possible to take a crop of low-growing plants be- 

 tween the Asparagus in the first year. 



By this method, twice as many plants may be grown 

 in the row as are needed, if thinned to one foot apart. 

 In the second spring, every other plant may be dug out 

 without injury to the remainder. The lifted plants may 

 be set in another row ; it will take them some time to 

 catch up with the others, which will yield in the third 

 spring, while the transplanted plants should not be cut 

 until their fourth. Of either set of plants the first 

 cutting should be very light. 



Plants grown by this method should be large and 

 vigorous at the end of the first year, fully equal in size 

 to two-year plants grown closely together by ordinary 

 seed-bed methods. 



Thinning is, with Asparagus, a difficult matter; it 

 is not sufficient merely to pull the tops. The crowns 

 are formed almost at once, each with a single storage 

 root, so that at even a few weeks the plants are able to 

 send up other shoots if the first are pulled. It is there- 

 fore necessary that the crowns should be pulled with 

 the tops; if the plants grow to any size, the crowns 

 must be dug out, a tedious process. 



