CULTURE IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES 165 



the free action of the breeze, but the French cultivators 

 never leave a 3'oung plant of asparagus to the wind's 

 mercy while they can find a stake of oak about a yard 

 long. 



When staking these 3'Oung plants they do not insert 

 the support close to the bottom, as we are too apt to do 

 in other instances, but a little distance off, so as to avoid 

 the possibility of injuring the root; each stake leans over 

 its plant at an angle of forty-five degrees, and when 

 the shoots are big enough to touch it, or to be caught b}' 

 the wind, they are tied to the stake. The ground in 

 which this system is pursued being entirely devoted to 

 asparagus, the stools are placed very much closer 

 together than they are among the vines — say, at a dis- 

 tance of about a yard apart. The little trenches are 

 about a foot wide and eight inches deep. 



The best asparagus in France is grown at Argen- 

 teuil and by one system mainly. The plants — one-year 

 seedlings (never older) — are planted in shallow trenches 

 seven or eight inches deep, the plants a little more than 

 one yard apart and the lines four feet apart. No 

 manure is given at planting ; no trenching or any 

 preparation of the ground, beyond digging the shallow 

 trench, takes place. In subsequent years a little 

 manure is given over the roots in autumn; the soil, 

 thrown out of the trenches and forming a ridge between 

 them, is planted with a light crop in spring. In all 

 subsequent years the earth is placed over the crowns 

 m spring and removed in autumn. 



Under this system good results are obtained in 

 various soils, the only difference being that on cold 

 clay soils the planting is not quite so deep. Every 



