General Notices. 183 



in their mode of treating asparagus. The former rnalces it a rule to cover, 

 early in spring, the surface of his beds, to a considerable depth, with earth 

 taken from the alleys between them, leaving the top of each smooth and 

 flat; in which form they remain throughout the growing season. A sim- 

 ilar operation is performed annually by the latter, but he chooses autumn as 

 the time for it ; and, in the spring, he forks the soil oiF again, leaving his 

 beds in the shape of a half cylinder, with the convex side presented to the sun. 

 Novv,-if it be admitted that any advantage is derivable from covering up 

 at all, I contend that it is secured by the market gardener's plan alone. He, 

 by covering at this time of the year, places the crowns of his plants in a 

 temperature far more congenial to healthy vegetation than that to which 

 the alternations of April's daily sunshine and nightly frost subject those 

 lying barely beneath the surface of the ground. Not less advantageous is 

 it to the plants, as the season advances, to have their roots protected from 

 the direct influence of the solar rays, whose exciting tendency is to force 

 the whole crop at once to maturity, leaving nothing for the latter part of 

 the asparagus season but small, and therefore almost worthless, shoots. As 

 a regulator of heat, then, we must, I think, acknowledge this covering to 

 be exceedingly valuable ; but this is not its only, or, indeed, most import- 

 ant office ; it prevents the rapid abstraction of moisture from about the 

 roots, which would otherwise take place, just at the time when the nature 

 of the plant most of all demands it. 



Now, on the other hand, what, I ask, can be said in favor of covering in 

 winter'? Is artificial covering necessary to an indigenous plant whose nat- 

 ural hardihood art has not impaired? Of what value is manure (if that be 

 urged as a reason for covering the beds in autumn) to a plant at a time 

 ■when its functions are suspended, and therefore its assimilation of the ele- 

 ments of manure impossible? And, lastly, why should the surface of the 

 beds be kept flat at that time of the year only when rain is most abundant 

 and least serviceable ? In submitting these questions to those of your read- 

 ers to whom they may apply, I beg respectfully to inform them that I have 

 not taken a mere theoretical or superficial view of the subject : I have fairly 

 tried both plans, and for several years, from which experience I pronounce 

 that of the market gardeners to be immeasurably superior to the other. — 

 {Gaid. Chron., 1848, p. 172.) 



Pears on Quince StocJcs. — I must refer your correspondent " Abdalony- 

 mus '' to my reply to " Constant Reader," given at p. 372, 1847 ; he will 

 there find the results of my experience, M-hich will spare my pen, but I feel 

 that I ought to firmly contradict his assertion — " It is a fact, that few sorts 

 of pears will grow immediately on quince stocks." I can give him a list of 

 more than 200 sorts that grow freely without double working. The Virgo- 

 leuse pear is very inferior to other sorts, the names of which I have given 

 in the letter above referred to for double working; for \^a]ls or espaliers 

 they are not " useless ;" let " Abdalonymus " go to Mr. Thompson, at 

 the Chiswick Gardens, and ask him to show him the fine trees in the west 

 wall there, some 25 years old, and looking as if they would live for a cen- 

 tury. Some of our finest old varieties of pear, such as the Crassane and 



