12 THE CULTURE OF VEGETABLES 



top-growth in maturing heads for the next season. To prevent this 

 injury is easy enough, but the precautions must be adopted in good 

 time. A free use of light, feathery stakes, such as are employed for 

 the support of Peas, thrust in firmly all over the bed, will insure all 

 needful support when gales are blowing. In the absence of pea- 

 sticks, stout stakes, placed at suitable distances and connected with 

 lengths of thick tarred twine, will answer equally well. In sheltered 

 gardens the protection of the young growth with litter, and of the 

 mature growth with stakes, need not be resorted to, but in exposed 

 situations they are of primary importance. 



The management of Asparagus includes a careful clean-up of the 

 beds in autumn, and a top-dressing in spring. The plants should 

 not be cut down until they change colour, and then all the top-growth 

 may be cleared away, the surface raked clean, and the sides of the 

 beds carefully touched up to make them neat and tidy. It is usual 

 at the same time to dig and manure the alleys, but this practice we 

 object to in toto, because it tends directly to the production of lean 

 sticks where fat ones are possible ; for the roots run freely in the 

 alleys, and to dig is to destroy them. It is sufficient to make all 

 clean and tidy. In the spring there will be found on the beds a new 

 crop of weeds ; these must be cleared off, and then the beds and the 

 alleys should be carefully pricked over with a fork two or three inches 

 deep only, and with great care not to wound any roots. Finally, put 

 on a coat of fat dung about two inches deep, and you may then wait 

 for the first show of heads, when, if needful, litter must be spread to 

 protect the early growth from frost. 



In many gardens where there is space for only two or three beds, 

 there will be the very natural desire to secure Asparagus in a shorter 

 time than is possible from seed, and we therefore proceed to indicate 

 the best method of planting roots. Asparagus roots do not take 

 kindly to removal, especially old and established plants. The mere 

 drying of the roots by exposure to the atmosphere is distinctly 

 injurious to them. They will travel from a distance when well 

 packed, but the critical time is between the unpacking and getting 

 them safely into their final home. The obvious lesson is that every- 

 thing should be made ready for the transfer before the package is 

 opened, and that the actual task of planting should be accomplished 

 in the shortest time possible. 



A three-feet bed should be prepared by taking out the soil in 

 such a manner as to leave two ridges for the roots. The space 

 between ridges to be eighteen inches, and the tops of the ridges to 



