40 FAEM-GAEDEXING AXD SEED-GEOWING. 



VEGETABLES AND THEIR SEEDS. 



ASPARAGUS. 



The increasing demand and consequent high prices ob- 

 tained for this vegetable, as well as its availability for 

 transportation, render it an object worthy the attention 

 of the farm-gardener. Quantities of it are being annually 

 planted at the e&st end of Long Island, where the charac- 

 ter of the soil and the humid, saline air seems particularly 

 adapted to its growth. As a general rule, asparagus suc- 

 ceeds best near the sea-coast, though it can be (and is) 

 profitably grown far inland, and upon almost any soil, by 

 proper preparation and careful attention, and in fact this 

 is a very essential point and the great secret of success in 

 any locality. Those who contemplate growing this vege- 

 table for profit will do well to bear in mind the latter 

 fact; and, moreover, it matters not how well the bed may 

 have been prepared and enriched in the beginning, unless 

 it is kept up to a high state of fertility by annual applica- 

 tions of manure in liberal quantity and thorough working, 

 all preliminary labor will have been in vain. An aspara- 

 gus bed, thoroughly prepared and properly attended to, 

 will continue to yield in large quantity for an indefinite 

 number of years, most writers placing the time at twenty, 

 but I have known of at least one bed producing profit- 

 ably for thirty years from the time of planting. 

 i 



Growing the Plants. The soil best adapted to grow- 

 ing asparagus roots or plants is a deep loam where sand 

 predominates, and which has been w~ell manured the pre- 

 ceding year. Give a good dressing of stable-manure, 

 plowed under, or bone-dust, bone-phosphate, or guano 



