How to Grow Good Asparagus. 633 



of his Old Colony Sweet Corn, so that it may soon get 



introduced into our gardens, and find a place upon our 

 tables. — Ed. 



Art. IL How to grow good Asparagus. By Dr. Lindlet. 

 From the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



In these days, when quacks endeavor to cram their nostrums 

 down simple people's throats, and persuade John Bull that 

 their conundrums are the only things under heaven by 

 which a gardener may hope to prosper, there is some danger 

 that the real principles of horticulture may be lost sight of, 

 and that the simple rules of science and good sense may be 

 abandoned, for a foolish belief in the potency of tiles, and 

 pipes, and pots, and pans, and other trumpery. It is there- 

 fore time to declare that good gardening wants no such aids ; 

 that the simplest means are those which, in skilful hands, 

 lead to the best results, and that he is the best gardener who 

 produces the greatest profit at the smallest cost. 



When the great engineer, with some tackle and a few 

 score laborers, lifted the vast tube of the Menai bridge, he 

 did no more perhaps than a Pharaoh could have accomplish- 

 ed by the united force of 10,000 slaves. But in the one 

 case we had science, skill, and economy ; in the other, brute 

 force and barbarian profusion. Will any one venture to 

 place the despot on a level with the philosopher ? In like 

 manner when a gardener with a clear head, skill, and a 

 glazed box, produces crops that are at the least equal to those 

 obtained in costly hothouses with all the appliances of wealth 

 and material, we must take care not to elevate the owner of 

 the latter, even though he wear a smart coat, and clean linen, 

 to a level with the former, ragged and poor as his apparel 

 may be, and seldom as his wages go to the payment of a 

 washer- woman. The first is the great gardener ; the other 

 is infinitely his inferior as such, even though he should have 

 a handle to his name. 



If any one wishes to apply these observations he will do 



