BOTANICAL DIVISION. 



G. E. Stone and R. E. Smith. 



The Asparagus Rust in Massachusetts. 



Various varieties of asparagus have been under cultivation for a 

 great many centuries, and even as far bade as the time of Pliny it is 

 mentioned as being in the highest state of cultivation. It has been 

 under cultivation in England and France for some hundred years, 

 where it has been highly esteemed, and from which countries it was 

 introduced into America by the early colonists. We find it occurring 

 in Massachusetts at a very early period and Josselyn, in his "New 

 England Rarities," published in 1672, says that " Sparagus thrives 

 exceedingly." It is also known that the Huguenots, who settled at 

 Oxford, Mass., in the year 16^0, were skilled horticulturists and that 

 they brought with them from their mother country, France, the best 

 types of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, which they cultivated with 

 a skill quite unknown to their f^nglish contemporaries. Among the 

 various vegetables which they brought with them was the asparagus, 

 and its plants after having been set out some two hundred 

 years ago can at the present time be seen, or at least plants originating 

 from the same stock, growing spontaneously j'ear after year over 

 the ruins of the original settlement of this remarkable people. 



The cultivation of asparagus, however, was extremely limited in 

 Massachusetts during the 17th and ISth centuries, it being confined 

 to the private gardens of the more progressive and well-to-do famil- 

 ies, and even at the beginning of the present century its cultivation 

 was not at all common. As to that matter, it is probably within the 

 bounds of accuracy when we affirm that even seventy-live years ago 



