THE A SPA RA GUS. 655 



possible to prevent checks from sun or wind. The second year each 

 alternate sowing may be taken up as first-class plants for forcing, and 

 a moderate cutting of fine asparagus commenced. If a tender green 

 well-flavoured shoot is wished for, but little earthing is required ; 

 if long, white, tough-drawn sticks are the order and the fashion, 

 earth or cover up to the desired height. Top-dressing and forking it in 

 each autumn, leaving a rough surface to get pulverized, and always keep- 

 ing the surface clear of weeds, will ensure a splendid crop of fine aspa- 

 ragus for many years nay, a generation or two. Apply liberal sow- 

 ings of common salt in dark, cloudy, and rainy weather." 



Mr. W. P. Ayres's observations on this subject are as follow : 

 " If we had a society for the prevention of cruelty to plants, we wonder 

 how those who torture asparagus would fare ? A native of the sea-coast, 

 where it may be found in abundance in some parts of the country, 

 nothing can exceed the barbarism to which it is subjected in many 

 gardens, the London market-gardens not excepted. The plant is as 

 frost-proof as the heath upon the mountain, and, though it prefers a 

 deep, rich, and rather moist soil, will grow upon a sandhill, and fight 

 a good fight for existence ; and yet some people swathe it in a thick 

 covering of rich manure for the winter, while the London market-gar- 

 dener plants it upon a high bank and unearths the plants, leaving them 

 as bare as the back of your hand for the same season. The London 

 grower, however, has an object in this to get the produce of his beds 

 into the market as early as possible ; consequently he exposes the 

 nearly perpendicular sides of his narrow beds to the action of the sun, 

 and as the heat accumulates daily upon the surface of the beds, the 

 men follow late in the afternoon and cover in the manured earth with 

 a sprinkling of soil from the path between the beds. In this way, and 

 in bright, sunny weather, the plants in the course of a week or ten 

 days are covered with a layer, some six inches thick, of heated earth, 

 which adds very materially to the early growth of the plants, and gives 

 the ' drumsticks' upon the point of which the consumable inch of aspa- 

 ragus is fixed. This may be a permissible system of cultivation, but 

 certainly it is not a rational one ; for to fix a plant which would grow 

 in a ditch through the summer upon a ridge of earth at that season, 

 and then bare its roots to the winter's blast, is anything but a com- 

 mendable system of cultivation. 



" Now, if really first-class rich succulent asparagus is wanted, the 

 first point to attend to is to trench the ground at the least two feet 

 deep, if three feet all the better, mixing intimately at the same 

 time a thick coat of rich manure, and, if a good dressing of * culch ' 

 or seaweed can be added, it will be so much the better ; but if not, 

 then salt, sufficient to make the surface of the ground quite white, 

 may be used twice or thrice during the growing season. If pos- 

 sible, this preparation should be made in the autumn ; and if up to 

 April, the time of planting, the ground is repeatedly forked over, espe- 

 cially after frost, it will be a great advantage. At the time of planting, 

 which should not be before the middle of April, banish altogether the 

 idea of raised beds, and cultivate the plant entirely upon the flat, seek- 



