MARCH] THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 201 



OF FORKING AND DRESSING THE ASPARAGUS BEDS. 



This work should be begun afyout the latter end of the month. 

 For the purpose of digging or forking these beds, you should be pro- 

 vided with a proper fork, having three short tines, six to eight or 

 nine inches long, perfectly flat, about an inch broad, and the ends 

 of them rounded and blunt. However, in want of such, it may be 

 performed with a small short-pronged common dung-fork. 



In forking the beds, be careful to loosen every part to a moderate 

 depth, but taking great care not to go too deep to wound the crowns 

 of the roots. 



The above work of forking these beds is most necessary to be done 

 every spring to improve and loosen the ground and to give free 

 liberty for the buds to shoot up, also to give easy access to the sun, 

 air, and showers of rain. 



The beds being forked, they must afterwards be raked even, ob- 

 serving, if you do not rake them immediately after they are forked, 

 to defer it no longer than the first week in April, for by that time 

 the buds will begin to advance. 



Before raking the above beds you may scatter thereon a few radish 

 and lettuce seeds to pull up while young. 



As to the method of gathering or cutting asparagus when advanced 

 to a proper growth for the table, it is generally most eligible to be 

 furnished with an asparagus knife, having a straight, narrow, taper- 

 ing blade, about six or eight inches long, and about an inch broad 

 at the haft, narrowing to about half an inch at the point, which 

 should be rounded off from the back, observing, when the shoots are 

 from about two to three or four inches high, they should be then cut, 

 slipping the knife down perpendicularly, close to each shoot, and cut 

 it off slantingly about three or four inches within the ground, taking 

 care not to wound any young buds coming up from the same root, for 

 there are always several shoots advancing therefrom in different 

 stages of growth.* 



PLANTING ASPARAGUS. 



New plantations of asparagus may now be made, this being the 

 proper season to remove these plants. It may be done any time in 

 this month, when the weather is mild. 



In making plantations of these plants, one great article to be con- 

 sidered is to make choice of a proper soil; choose the best the garden 

 affords. It must not be wet nor too strong or stubborn, but such as 

 is moderately light and pliable, so as it will readily fall to pieces in 

 digging or raking, &c., and in a situation that enjoys the full sun. 



The ground where you intend to make new asparagus beds should 

 have a large supply of rotten or other good dung laid thereon seve- 

 ral inches thick, and then regularly trenched two spades deep, and 



* If the young shoots be allowed to grow six inches high and are cut 

 off level with the ground, the whole is tender ; all below the soil is tough 

 and stringy. 



