1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 59 



Mr. Hersey. I do not like to occupy so much of the 

 time, but this question is of importance, and as I have had 

 positive practical experience in this matter, I feel that I 

 should be doing injustice if I did not give it. When I com- 

 menced raising asparagus, forty years ago, I thought I must 

 do as the books said, and so I began to raise asparagus with 

 salt ; but, always wishing to know from my own practical 

 knowledge what was best, I began experimenting. So I 

 raised side by side asparagus with salt and asparagus with- 

 out salt, and it took but a very few years to settle to my 

 satisfaction that the salt was of no possible use, but rather a 

 damage, to the asparagus. It was a damage to its size, it 

 was a damage to its flavor. I carried asparagus into Boston 

 that had been raised without the use of salt, and got three 

 or four cents a bunch more for it than those who carried in 

 asparagus raised with salt. I have raised asparagus without 

 salt an inch and five-eighths in diameter, and that is big 

 enough ; you do not need to grow it any larger than that. 

 I feel as sure that salt is of no use on my land for asparagus 

 as I am that I stand here to-day ; but I am not going to say 

 that there may not be a spot upon this earth where salt may 

 be beneficial to asparagus. It may be so, and if there is one 

 man who has found out that he has a piece of land that can 

 be manured with salt, why, he would be a fool if he did not 

 use it. 



Professor Stockbridge . I have the impression that these 

 difierent opinions about the use of salt can be reconciled. 

 Our friend the lecturer, whose land is down by New York 

 Bay, where the air is so full of salt that in an ordinary day 

 he can feel it upon his lips, must know that his soil is full 

 of salt. What does he want of any more to grow asparagus ? 

 My friend Mr. Hersey lives down in Hingham, where the 

 sea breezes are blowing salt all over him and all over his 

 asparagus beds. What in the world does he want to use 

 salt for? Now, I should like to have the gentleman who 

 has told us about that asparagus bed which has grown such 

 splendid crops for ten years with salt alone, state where 

 it is. 



Mr. Stone. It is in Watertown, four miles and a half 

 from Boston. 



