Chap. XXVIL] ASPARAGUS CULTURE. 469 



careful cultivator uses a stake), and the mutual support thus 

 given prevents the plant from being injured by winds. It is 

 liable to be twisted off at the " collar " by strong winds, especially 

 in wet weather, when the drops on every tiny leaf make the 

 foliage heavy. The growing of Asparagus among the Vines is a 

 very usual mode, and a vast space is thus covered with it about 

 here. It is grown in other and more special ways, though not 

 one like our way of growing it, which is decidedly much inferior 

 to the French methods. 



Perhaps the simplest and most worthy of adoption is to grow 

 it in shallow trenches. Extensive plantings look much as a Celery 

 ground does soon after being planted, the young Asparagus plants 

 being in a shallow trench, and a little ridge of soil being thrown 

 up between the lines of Asparagus. These trenches are generally 

 about four feet apart. The soil generally is a rather stiff sandy 

 loam with calcareous matter in some parts, but the soil has not 

 all to do with the peculiar excellence of the vegetable. Soils on 

 which it would flourish equally well are common in England. It 

 is the careful attention to the wants of the plant that produces 

 such a good result. Here, for instance, is a young plantation 

 planted in March, and from the little ridges of soil between the 

 shallow trenches have just been dug a crop of small early Potatoes. 

 In England, the Asparagus would be left to the free action of the 

 breeze, but the French cultivators never leave a young plant of 

 Asparagus to the wind's mercy whilst they can find a stake of oak 

 about a yard long. When staking these young plants they do 

 not insert the support close at the bottom, as we are too apt to do 

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

 possibility of injuring a root ; each stake leans over its plant at 

 an angle of 45°, and when the shoots are big enough to touch 

 it or be caught by 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 when grown among the Vines, say at a distance of 

 about a yard apart. The little trenches are about a foot wide 

 and eight inches below the level of the ground. 



The young plants are placed in these trenches very carefully. 

 A little mound is made with the hand in each spot where a plant 

 is to be placed, so as to elevate the crown a little and permit of 



^ I 



