SALT ON ASPARAGUS. 321 



gether, and back-furrowed it into ridges, three and a half 

 feet apart, — far enough apart to go through with a horse-hoe, 

 — and sowed my beets on the top of those ridges, endeavor- 

 ing to sow them so that they should not be nearer than six or 

 eight inches, but they were nearer than that, and we thinned 

 them out. They were cultivated thoroughly with a horse- 

 hoe. I raised a little more than forty tons to the acre, or at 

 that rate, as reported by a committee, the average rate being 

 taken. 



The Chairman. What variety of beets were they? 



Mr. Carter. The mangold-wurzel, the red beet. 



Mr. Sessions. Is salt beneficial to asparagus? 



Mr. Slade. I am not competent to answer that question. 

 It is customary to apply salt to asparagus, and as near as I 

 can find out, the reason it is thought to be necessary is be- 

 cause asparagus, although not exactly a marine plant, is 

 found growing on the marshes, and on beaches near salt 

 water, and people have been in a hurry to draw the inference 

 that it needed salt in order to flourish. Now, I find it grow- 

 ing near beaches, and I find it growing in the woods, where 

 there is a beach opening, on light soil. The seed is evidently 

 distributed about by the birds, and in other ways, and it 

 seems to me that the idea that it needs salt is an erroneous 

 one. I have put a couple of barrels of salt on half an acre 

 every spring, and I do it because I think it will keep the 

 weeds down. That is all I did it for. It certainly lowers 

 the temperature, and the asparagus is a few days backward-, 

 and for that reason, I have thought I would not apply any 

 next year, but I am going to send and get a ton of that salt 

 from Syracuse. The reason why I am going to abandon the 

 use of salt on my asparagus is because, from the little expe- 

 rience I have had, it does more harm than good, in this way : 

 It lowers the temperature, and the asparagus will be two 

 days behind, which is of considerable consequence with that 

 crop, and I would rather have the asparagus two days earlier, 

 even if I have the weeds which the application of salt is sup- 

 posed to prevent. 



The Chairman. A few years ago, I was at Concord and 

 saw an asparagus-bed, owned by a friend of mine. There 

 was not a weed to be seen of any size on his bed, and it 



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