General Notices. 363 



ket. By this practice, the finer flavor is altogether lost, and the cooks 

 should be warned against doing the same. 



Wherever manure is not a very expensive article, the culture of asparagus 

 pays well, since the lightest and the most sandy land, where nothing else 

 can be grown with advantage, can easily be adapte 1 to its culture, and will 

 yield a rent for a long series of years. Besides, the same land can be made 

 use of for carrots and other vegetables, when the time of cutting is over. 

 Living myself some hundred steps from the Baltic, and having read differ- 

 ent accounts of the famous asparagus culture at the sea coast near Saa 

 Sebastian, in Spain, I have last year made the experiment to grow it in 

 pure sea sand containing no humus or vegetable matter whatever. It only 

 received a moderate supply of manure, and has even not been watered dur- 

 ing the last hot summer ; nevertheless, it is growing this year so well, that 

 I might have cut a tolerable quantity of shoots as big as a lady's finger, if 

 I would be foolish enough to do so. 



The price of asparagus with us varies from four to seven or eight 

 schillings, or English pence, per pound, the former being the general price 

 from the moment the weather begins to become warm. Many thousand 

 poutids are sent by the steamers to Sweden and other foreign countries, 

 since the Lubeck asparagus is well renowned. Though I never liad the 

 advantage of seeing your fine country, and, therefore, cannot be a judge of 

 your green asparagus, I have several times eaten green asparagus in Italy 

 and France, but I dare confess merely for want of better. However, there 

 is no quarrelling as to matters of taste. As far as regards tenderness, I am 

 at a loss to understand how asparagus can improve by being exposed to the 

 drying influence of air, wind, and sunshine. It may become more aromatic, 

 though I doubt it, but it will certainly require a greater exertion in being 

 Biasticated. 



Some persons assert that another kind of asparagus is cultivated in some 

 parts of the south of (Jermany, which always appears green on the table, 

 though white shoots are equally eaten. I have hitherto not been able to 

 procure any authentic information about its existence, and am inclined to 

 think, that only the manner of culture will produce the difl^erence. An 

 English giant asparagus has lately been offered by some nurserymen, like- 

 wise hitherto not cultivated by myself. Different sorts may require a differ- 

 ent treatment. 



The season for asparagus is at present on the decline. However, I have 

 requested a friend at Lubeck to send you with this letter a sample of our 

 market asparagus, grown and sold in the common way, and I beg you to 

 give it a fair trial, not overlooking that it will have been cut almost a week 

 when arriving with you. — Gard. Chron., 1847, pp. 403, 404. 



CuUicating the Pine Apple in the open air in England. — The last mail 

 brings to hand our foreign papers, and we fifid in one of them an important 

 article on ttie growth of the pine apple, — heretofore supposed to require the 

 very highest temperature, — in the open air. The communication of this 

 fact has been made by Lady Rolle, of Bicton, in Devonshire, to Dr. Lind- 

 ley, and we quote the whole from the Chronicle, and would particularly ask our 



