CULTURAL DIRECTIONS 219 



hoes or one-horse cultivators are employed. Care must 

 be exercised in cultivating to prevent breaking, injuring 

 and covering the young plants. One-horse cultivators 

 are doubtless the best implements for most conditions, 

 although other types of implements are employed in 

 various sections. 



Cultivation should begin early in the spring and con- 

 tinue as long as it is possible to get between the rows 

 with horse tools in order to keep down the weeds and 

 maintain soil moisture. Some hoeing may be necessary 

 during the cutting season, although the proper use of the 

 weeder will reduce the amount of hand labor. If the weeder 

 is used during the middle of sunny days, when the plants 

 are not so rigid, very few shoots will be broken or injured. 



In established fields either the disk or the cutaway 

 harrow should be used to break and pulverize the sur- 

 face soil in the spring as soon as the ground is dry 

 enough. Manure may also be incorporated with the soil 

 at this time. Following harvest, one of these tools should 

 be employed after the fertilizer or the manure has been 

 applied. In old fields harrowing will necessarily injure 

 some of the buds, but the benefit is so great that the 

 operation is justifiable. 



Ridging to a greater or less extent is practiced in 

 nearly all plantations, not excepting fields producing 

 green shoots. Plows, disk ridgers or other special tools 

 are used to perform this work in the spring after the 

 ground has been harrowed. Ridging is not usually prac- 

 ticed until the spring of the third year. The ground is 

 always leveled at the close of the cutting season and one- 

 horse cultivators are employed as long as it is possible 

 to get between the rows. In a few weeks after the last 

 cutting the ground will be completely shaded and the 

 weeds cannot make much progress. No tillage tool which 

 will seriously break or mutilate the roots should ever be 

 used in asparagus fields. 



