56 ASP AS AG- US. 



drainage ; but if this latter requisite is provided, almost 

 any soil can be so prepared as to produce fair crops of it. 



Asparagus plants are raised by sowing the seeds in the 

 month of September if autumn sown, or in the month of 

 April if spring sown. The seed bed should be composed 

 of good, rich soil, well pulverized and manured with well- 

 rotted manure. The seed, of which an ounce will produce 

 about a thousand plants, or be sufficient for fifty or sixty 

 feet of drill, should be thinly sown in drills twelve inches 

 apart and an inch in depth. After the plants come up, 

 the bed should be kept thoroughly clear of weeds by 

 repeated hoeings. The plants, if well cared for, will be 

 large enough to plant out in permanent beds when a year 

 old, but some cultivators prefer to let them remain until 

 they are two years old. Ordinarily it is a saving of time 

 to purchase the roots from a nurseryman or seedsman, as 

 one or two years' time can be gained by so doing. 



As asparagus beds, if properly prepared and attended 

 to, will yield good shoots for twenty years, it is poor policy 

 to neglect the proper preparation of the bed, or stint the 

 supply of fertilizing material. They may be prepared and 

 planted either in the autumn or in the spring as soon as 

 the ground is in good working order, up to the middle or 

 end of April. The ground should be trenched two spades 

 deep, and each spade of depth should have three or four 

 inches deep of well-rotted manure dug into the soil, mixing 

 it thoroughly. Coarse bone-dust or crushed bone is also 

 an excellent fertilizer for this plant. 



It is usual to plant the roots in beds each five feet wide, 

 and containing three rows of plants one foot apart and a 

 foot between either of the outer rows and the edge of the 

 bed, and then allowing two or two and a half feet alley- 

 way between the beds; but this is by no means absolutely 



