38 



Asparagus. 



Vol. VII. 



gardens it is small, green and strong; in the 

 London market it is long, white, hard and 

 tough — to the eye attractive enough, but to 

 the taste more like bleached timber than an 

 esculent. Indeed we have never been able 

 to comprehend the reason why, in this our 

 age of improvement, some ingenious turner 

 has not produced imitation sticks, which 

 might be tipped with half an inch of eatable 

 asparagus, and thus spare the necessity of 

 cooking four-fifths of the stuff that is brought 

 to a London table. Covent Garden aspara- 

 gus is assuredly the worst in Europe. For 

 this reason, when really fine asparagus is 

 met with, people think it must be some pe- 

 culiar sort. Obtain the roots from Vienna, 

 Berlin, Hamburg, Battersea, or Deptford; 

 and then, when they find them producing 

 heads identical with what they had before, 

 lay the blame to the seedsman, or the soil, 

 or the climate, or anything rather than their 

 own want of skill. There is but one sort of 

 asparagus, be its name what it may; all the 

 difference consists in its cultivation. 



Captain Churchill says, the Guipuscoan 

 asparagus measures from three to six, and 

 more inches in circumference. How this is 

 obtained, his excellent account leaves no 

 room to doubt. 



Asparagus is a plant found naturally on 

 the beach of various parts of the coast of 

 Europe, where it is covered by the drifting 

 sand, and watered by salt water at higfi 

 tides. Sand and salt water occasionally 

 may, therefore, be regarded as indispensable 

 conditions for maintaining it in health. How 

 seldom is this thought of. It, however, ex- 

 plains in part the excellence of St. Sebas- 

 tian asparagus. 



It seems that at the mouth of theUrumea 

 is a narrow slip of land, about three feet 

 above high-water mark, consisting of allu- 

 vial soil and the wearing away of sandstone 

 hills, at whose foot it is placed. This is the 

 asparagus ground of St. Sebastian. Beds 

 are formed five feet wide, without any pre- 

 vious preparation except digging and raking. 

 In March the seed is sown in two drills, 

 about two inches deep, and eighteen inches 

 from the alleys, thus leaving a space of two 

 feet between the drills. The rows run in- 

 variably east and west; doubtless in order 

 that the plants may shade the ground during 

 the heats of summer. When the seedlings 

 are about six inches high, they are thinned 

 to something more than a foot apart. Water 

 is conducted once a day among the alleys 

 and over the beds, so as to give the seed I mo- 

 an abundant and constant supply of fluid 

 during the season of their growth. This is 

 the cultivation during the first year. 



The second year, in the month of March, 



the beds are covered with three or four 

 inches of fresh night soil from the reservoirs 

 of the town. It remains on them during the 

 succeeding autumn, the operation of irriga- 

 tion being continued as during the first sea- 

 son. This excessive stimulus, and the abund- 

 ant room the plants have to grow in, must 

 necessarily make them extremely vigorous, 

 and prepare them for the production of gi- 

 gantic sprouts. 



In the third spring, the asparagus is fit to 

 cut. Doubtless all its energies are developed 

 by the digging in of the manure in the au- 

 tumn of the second year ; and when it does 

 begin to sprout, it finds its roots in contact 

 with a soil of inexhaustible fertility. Pre- 

 viously, however, to the cutting, each bed is 

 covered in the course of March very lightly 

 with dead leaves, to the depth of about eight 

 inches ; and the cutting does not commence 

 till the plants peep through this covering, 

 when it is carefully removed from the stems, 

 in order that the finest only may be cut, 

 which are rendered white by their leafy 

 covering, and succulent by the excessive 

 richness of the soil. 



In the autumn of the third year, after the 

 first cutting, the leaves are removed, and 

 the beds again dressed with fresh night soil 

 as before, and these operations are repeated 

 year after year. In addition to this, the 

 beds are half under salt water annually at 

 spring tides. 



Let any one compare the mode of culture 

 with ours, and there will be no room for 

 wondering at the difference in the result. 

 The Spaniards use a light sandy soil ; we 

 are content with anything short of clay. 

 They irrigate ; we trust to our rainy climate. 

 They know the value of salt water to a sea- 

 coast plant; we take no means to imitate 

 nature in this respect. They dress their 

 beds with the most powerful of all manures; 

 we are contented with the biack residuum 

 of a cucumber frame, which is comparative- 

 ly a caput mortuum. Finally, they throw 

 leaves lightly over thair beds, by which 

 means they expose the young sprouts to the 

 least amount of resistance, and force thern 

 onward by the warmth collected from the 

 sun by such beds of leaves; we, on the 

 other hand, compel the asparagus to struggle 

 through solid earth, capable in the smallest 

 possible degree of absorbing warmth during 

 the day, but ready to part with its heat again 

 at night to the greatest possible amount. 



Can any one wonder, then, at the poor 

 results obtained by our manner of cultiva- 

 tion; or that some gardener should now and 

 then astonish his neighbours by producing 

 asparagus which we call giant, but which at 

 St. Sebastian would be called second-rate 1 



