84 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



complete. Do not allow the spindling, thready shoots to grow, but keep the 

 plantation clean of sprouts until the season shall be over. The period of gather- 

 ing depends entirely upon the character of the season. A safe rule to follow is 

 to close the asparagus season with the advent of early peas from your own 

 garden. 



It is not uncommon with me to have shoots, under ordinary field culture, 

 over an inch in diameter, and by special attention this may be increased by one 

 half. Mr. Burr, in his "Garden Vegetables," records the largest product in 

 Britain, from one plant, to have been grown by a Mr. Grayson, aggregating one 

 hundred stalks with a weight of 42 pounds. 



Dr. Kennicott writes of a bed planted twenty-four years, with the plants four 

 feet apart, cultivated with a horse and receiving annual dressings of manure, 

 which furnished a family of twenty for two months in each year, at a less aggre- 

 gate expense than that required to produce a dozen messes of green peas for the 

 same table. He says that any ground which will grow a premium crop of corn 

 will grow prize-taking asparagus. 



In arranging for a long season of asparagus, amateurs have taken advantage 

 of the fact that every inch of earth above the crown of the plants defers the date 

 of picking two days. By having a few plants with crowns near the surface the 

 season may be advanced somewhat, and the picking from these plants should be 

 discontmued correspondingly early. 



THE MARKET PLANTATION. 



It is best to grow one's own plants if practicable. If not, the best yearling 

 plants should be secured, at a cost not exceeding $3 per thousand in quantity. 



With a supply of fine yearling plants on hand, and a piece of ground fitted 

 to grow seventy-five bushels of shelled corn per acre — land, if possible, of the 

 character I described for the seed bed — it is not a very serious job to put down 

 an acre of asparagus. 



The record here given is a leaf from my own experience. My acre of ground 

 was a deep, sandy loam, upon which a heavy dressing of manure had been placed 

 the previous year and a crop of potatoes taken from it. The land was turned 

 two furrows deep and thoroughly cultivated, harrowed and smoothed with a 

 planer. Rows were marked out four feet apart, and with a plow trenchers opened 

 to a depth of nine inches. The ground once in shape for planting, if a " drizzly " 

 day happens along just right, one has the ideal conditions for putting in the 

 plants. One man distributes the plants three feet apart in the row and a second 

 man puts them in place, packing enough dirt firmly about the roots to cover 

 them well. It requires 3,630 plants for the acre, and the two men will, if active, 

 put them in place in half a day. The smoothing harrow drawn lengthwise of the 

 plantation completes the job, by rattling a little loose earth into the furrows. In 

 a few days the harrowing process can again be repeated, destroying the small 

 weeds, and I even followed a third time before the plants were high enough to 

 be injured. 



