ASPARAGUS 1 9 7 



my foreman received and planted them. On my return he told me that the 

 roots were hot when unpacked and many of them moldy. Had I been at 

 home they would not have been received. Out of the whole 30,000 not fifty 

 plants grew, and I have never bought asparagus roots since. Some advise 

 the planting of two-year-old roots as an advantage of a year's growth, but I 

 have never found that there was any advantage in these unless they had been 

 singled out and transplanted at one year's growth. Most asparagus plants 

 offered for sale have been grown entirely too much crowded, the object being 

 to get as many plants as possible per acre. The grower who produces his own 

 plants can avoid this. One of the most important points in the production 

 of good asparagus plants is to grow them in the richest and best prepared soil. 

 Plants grown thinly in such soil, are far better at one year than the majority 

 of the plants sold are at two years. The books will tell you that it takes 

 three years to produce salable asparagus, and under ordinary conditions it 

 does. On one occasion I prepared and heavily fertilized a piece of land al- 

 ready very fertile, for the production of plants for setting the following fall. 

 They made a magnificent growth, and the season was very favorable. After 

 planting what we needed there were about 50,000 plants left, and I proposed 

 to sell these, and did sell a large number. To my surprise, when the plants 

 began to shoot, the following spring, I found that in these nursery rows I had 

 large and marketable asparagus, and did market quite a quantity but one 

 season from the seed, and the transplanted roots gave me a very fair crop a 

 year after setting. The abundance of plant food in the soil counts for more 

 than age with the asparagus plant, and abundant feeding more than any 

 special variety. There is one advantage to the grower in keeping his plants 

 in the nursery rows till two years old ; this is that he can then find and reject 

 all the pistillate, or seed bearing plants, and it is a great advantage to have 

 none of these in the plantation, since seed production is an exhaustive process 

 to the* plant and the crop will be larger if the female plants are taken out. 

 This is another reason for the grower producing his own plants. 



For the production of the plants I prepare a rich and rather moist piece 

 of land, but by no means an undrained soil. If stable manure is abundant 

 fill the land with well rotted manure, and add to it a good percentage of 

 kainit or muriate of potash, for the development of strong roots depends on 

 a full supply of potash in the soil in a soluble form. Sow the seed in shallow 

 furrows and cover about two inches. Keep them as clean as an onion bed 

 during the whole summer. The plants should stand about three inches apart 

 to make fair roots, and if they come up too thickly, thin them when the size 

 of a large darning needle and transplant them at good distances. These little 

 plants transplant easily, and often make the finest of roots. In the South, 



