Cultural Directions. — 185 



required to make up for the removed plant food must not 

 be neglected. In the fall, and every fall afterwards, the tops 

 are to be cut before they shed their seed, taken off the field, 

 or piled up and burned. The young plants, that spring up 

 from seed carelessly left to drop, are sometimes worse than 

 weeds. Winter protection by covering with coarse litter or 

 otherwise is not needed except at the extreme north. The 

 stalks should all be left to grow the next (second) season, 

 and same thorough cultivation and general treatment given 

 as in the first. In the spring apply a top dressing of good 

 compost. 



With careful planting in the way described, and strong 

 plants to begin with, the bed will yield a fair crop the third 

 season, and a full one every year afterwards. The wise grower 

 will cut sparingly the first cropping season, and always and 

 every season stop cutting at the first indication of weakness of 

 the plants. Long-continued cutting is a great strain on the 

 roots, and some rest is 

 absolutely needed to keep 

 them in health and strength. 

 Some kind of manure is 

 to be given every spring, 

 according to the needs of 

 the soil. Compost may be 

 alternated with commercial 

 fertilizers. A good practice 

 followed by growers in 

 New Jersey and elsewhere, 

 is to open a furrow with a 

 one-horse plow between each two rows, fill this with compost, and 

 turn the soil back upon it. Excessive manuring will hardly ever 

 be required. Salt may be beneficial in some cases, but generally 

 has little or no effect. Being a salt-water plant, asparagus can 

 stand almost any quantity of salt without injury, but it does not 

 show any partiality for it. All manures should be applied in 

 the spring, and an annual top-dressing of nitrate of soda, at the 

 time that the first shoots begin to start (in March or April), and 

 at the rate of 200 or 300 pounds per acre, is one of the surest- 

 paying investments. 



When the time of cutting the stalks draws nigh, the rows 

 are nicely rounded off, as was shown on page 143, and the crop is 

 gathered every morning. Cutting has to be done with a careful 

 hand in order to avoid injury to the tops of other stalks that have 

 not yet reached the surface. 



Marketing. — Reject all the ill- shaped and under- sized stalks, 

 and using one of the modern asparagus bunchers now on sale 

 in every hardware store, make neat, firm bunches, which should 



Home-made Asparagus Buncher. 



