V. ASPARAGUS. 



on good, well prepared compost, partly consisting of 

 rotten dung to the depth of two inches or a little more. 

 In the spring, in March, throw upon the beds three 

 inches deep of earth out of the alleys. Break it very 

 fine, and attend to keeping the sides of the bed very 

 smooth and erect. This is the third year after sowing ; 

 and, if the ground be good in its nature, and, if all these 

 instructions be duly attended to, there will be some 

 heads of asparagus fit to cut. The four beds will con- 

 tain 588 stools or crowns; and, if you were to cut only 

 four heads of asparagus from each crown, you would 

 have above twenty hundred bundles of asparagus, a 

 hundred in each bundle. However, unless the crowns 

 be very strong, it would be best to wait another year j 

 and then, without cutting any but what would be very 

 fine, you would have more than any family of reasonable 

 size would want to consume. In the fall of this third 

 year, cut down the haulm as before 5 put on manure 

 again as before -, and in the next spring, take another 

 two and a half inches of earth out of the alleys and put 

 on the beds as before. The alleys will now be deep 

 enough, and you need never throw any more earth upon 

 the beds, except the shovellings up of what has fallen 

 into them from the beds by washing or crumbling : and 

 this ought to be done every spring, in March. Every 

 fall, the haulm ought to be cut off; and some little 

 matter of manure, rather of a littery sort, scattered on ; 

 and this ought to be forked up every spring, previous to 

 the shovelling up of the alleys. One very great fault in 

 the management of asparagus beds, is, to suffer the seed 

 to drop and to remain on the beds. This seed will grow 

 and become plants j and, in a short time, you have the 



