The Canadian Horticulturist. 85 



Upon ground that is heavily manured with stable manure, weeds grow with- 

 out provocation, and constant cultivation is required to ensure the continuous 

 growth of the planted crop ; but the careful culture required to keep the weeds 

 in abeyance is the ideal future of the crop. 



At the end of the season the crowns of the asparagus plants are covered to a 

 depth of six inches. The ground can be given thorough culture to a depth of 

 three or four inches across the field, without injury to the plants. 



My first acre was planted six years ago and has been plowed over each year 

 just after burning off the tops in the autumn, and before the freezing of the 

 ground. I give it a biennial dressing of stable manure, alternating with dres- 

 sings of refuse salt from a hide packing establishment. The dressing of manure 

 is at the rate of thirty-two tons per acre and the dressing of the salt product 

 about eight tons per acre. The latter dressing is filled with animal products. 



In the spring of each year the ground is thoroughly cultivated, harrowed, and 

 finished with a planer, so that when we open the season of picking, the surface is 

 as smooth as a floor. 



My picking season usually lasts about six weeks and the average product is 

 something over 400 dozen bunches. If I can have a trusty hand to do the 

 gathering, I do not allow a knife to be taken into the field. The gatherer takes 

 two rows at a time, breaking off the shoots just beneath the ground, at the lowest 

 point where they will snap squarely off. In the growing season the field is gone 

 over every day. Asparagus should be sold by weight, like lettuce and pieplant ; 

 but, unfortunately, our retailers have not as yet taken this progressive step, and 

 we have asparagus, not only of all grades of quality, in the market, but 

 bunches of all lengths and sizes. 



Since I have used rubber elastics instead of string or bark for tying, the pro- 

 cess of bunching has been greatly abridged. Five dozen bunches can be put 

 together in an hour by an expert hand and neatly squared at the ends. 



Because the finest French asparagus goes into market blanched, with 

 only the tips having any color, many people have absorbed the idea that our own 

 product, if found on the market with half the length of the stems white, is the 

 better for it. The truth is, the delicate product of the Paris market has been 

 carefully blanched after an approved method, is crisp and tender its full length ; 

 while a similar-looking product on our own market, grown in our ordinary field 

 culture, is more than half waste because of the threads of woody fibre extending 

 through the white part of the stems. 



It is a custom among many of our gardeners, by the use of the knife to give 

 their bunches the required length by cutting far beneath the surface, lowering the 

 quality of their product and demoralizing the market. By following my method 

 of breaking the stems there is no waste, and the quality of the lower part of the 

 stems is as excellent as any part of them. 



The doing aw^iy with the necessity of careful rules for cutting asparagus, and 

 the forms of implements best fitted for the purpose ; the simplifying of the 

 tying process, and the elimination of a large proportion of the expenses in 

 preparing the field, are decidedly important steps in progressive asparagus cul- 

 ture. — C. W. Garfield, before Michigan State Hori. Soc. 



