ASPARAGUS. 35 



winter, the gardener wlio studies his interest will make the 

 most of the spiing season, and raise all he can before the 

 market becomes ghitted ; to this end, he is recommended to 

 prepare for forcing this vegetable, as soon as the coldest of 

 the winter is past. [See article on Forcing' Vegetables.) 



Asparagus may be raised by sowing .he seed in the fall 

 as soon as ripe, or in March and the early part of April. 

 One ounce of seed will produce about a thousand plants. It 

 requires some of the best ground in the garden. The seed 

 may be sown in drills, ten or twelve inches asunder, and 

 covered about an inch with light earth. When the plants 

 are up, they will need a careful hoeing, and if well culti- 

 vated, and kept free from weeds, they will be large enough 

 to transplant when they are a year old. Some keep them in 

 the nursery bed until they are two years old. 



A plantation of Asparagus, if the beds are properly dressed 

 every year, will produce good buds for twenty years or more. 



New plantations of Asparagus may be made in autumn, 

 or before the buds get far advanced in spring, say in Febru- 

 ary, March, or April, according to situation and circum- 

 stances. The ground for the bed must not be wet, nor too 

 strong or stubborn, but such as is moderately light and plia- 

 ble, so that it will readily fall to pieces in digging or raking, 

 and in a situation that enjoys the full rays of the sun. It 

 should have a large supply of well rotted dung, three or four 

 inches thick, and then be regularly trenched two spades 

 deep, and the dung buried equally in each trench twelve or 

 fifteen inches below the surface. When this trenching is 

 done, lay two or three inches of thoroughly rotted manure 

 over the whole surface, and dig the ground over again eight 

 or ten inches deep, mixing this top dressing, and incorpo- 

 rating it well with the earth. 



In family gardens, it is customary to divide the gi'ound 

 thus prepared into beds, allowing four feet for every four 

 rows of plants, with alleys two feet and a half wide between 

 each bed. Strain your line along the bed six inches from 



