106 



CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



fashion, putting the plants one foot 

 apart in the line and the crowns three 

 inches under ground. The second batch 

 I planted I merely digged the ground 

 with plenty of manure, having lines 

 eighteen inches apart, and planting a 

 foot apart in the line, using two-year- 

 old plants, though one-year-old would 

 give less work. I commenced to cut a 

 few stray ones the second year. The 

 third year I cut all until June. I let 

 them grow up the first week of July, as 

 soon as peas became plentiful. And as 

 soon as the seed ripened I cut down and 

 top-dressed them with about six inches 

 of manure. In the spring 1 take off 

 the roughest, and put on one bushel of 

 salt to one-eighth of an acre, the size 

 of my patch, and with a fork stir up 



the surface, not to interfere with tlie 

 plants. You will not have any trouble 

 with weeds after so much salt. I con- 

 tinued that course for twenty-tive years, 

 and my asparagus constantly improved. 

 I have often put as few as tive stalks in a 

 five-cent bunch, sometimes only three. 

 My land was sandy loam. I sold out the 

 land in building lots several years ago, 

 but they have the asparagus as good as 

 ever, and when digging a cellar the 

 roots were down six feet. I made 

 $100 a year off my asparagus, and .$100 

 off a patch of gooseberries of about the 

 same size or rather less, often having 

 half-a-bushel on one bush. I forgot to 

 say that when I ceased cutting the as- 

 paragus, I hoed and raked the ground 

 level, giving it a good appearance. 



AN IMMENSE FOSSIL TREE 



BY .1. II. PA> 



IN a former communication I de- 

 scribed an immense vine now grow- 

 ing in the Vinery at Hampton Court ; 

 in this, I purpose placing before the 

 reader some information about a fossil 

 tree, said to be the largest ever found. 

 It was discovered in the lower coal 

 measures in a quarry at Clayton, near 

 Halifax, Yorkshire, England, and at- 

 tracted so much attention that people 

 travelled miles to see it, in fact, the 

 proprietor of the quarry made more 

 from exhibiting it, as found in its stony 

 bed, than from the stone quarried near 

 it. A penny admission was all that 

 was asked, and thousands of people 

 threaded their way up the hill to the 

 quarrv to get a glimpse of this monster, 

 a silent monument of the rank vegeta- 

 tion that characterized the foi'ests of 

 the coal-forming period in the earth's 

 history. The writer had the pleasure 

 of seeing this wonderful relic in August 

 of last year. It was discovered twelve 



J, M.A., GUELPII, ONT. 



feet below the surface of quarried rock. 

 The stump was imbedded in sandy 

 shale, while the roots rested on a bed 

 of soft blue shale, which some of them 

 penetrate. 



The stump is three and three-fourths 

 feet high, diameter one way being four 

 and one-half feet, the other three and 

 five-sixths feet, thus forming a sort of 

 oval outline. 



The roots are by far the most inter- 

 esting, and serve to identify it as be- 

 longing to the genus Stigmaria. 



The specimen is admitted to be the 

 finest of its kind hitherto obtained in 

 any part of the world. It demonstrates 

 that Stigmaria is a root and not a root- 

 stock ; that the four primary roots 

 radiate from the base of an erect stem ; 

 that each of these roots divide into two 

 forks close to the base of the tree, and 

 that Ijeyond the second branching no 

 further divisions take place ; from that 

 the undivided roots extend to consider- 

 able though varied distances. 



The following measurements, taken 



