226 Jsparagus Culture in France. 



to touch it or be caught by the wind, they tie it to the stick as a 

 matter of course. 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 — 

 looking deeper, however, from the soil being piled up. 



They place the young plants in these trenches very nicely and 

 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 the spreading out of the roots in a perfectly safe manner. 

 In fact they seem to be about as particular as regards depositing the 

 young plants in the first instance, as a good grape-grower is about 

 his young vines. They plant in March and April — ^using any kind 

 of manure that can be had, but chiefly here, so far as I could 

 see, the refuse of the town — the ashes, old vegetables, rags, and 

 other matters, that the people throw before their doors, and which 

 the dust-carts take away in the morning. They are very particular 

 to destroy the weeds, and they also take good care to destroy all 

 sorts of insect enemies in the early morning, especially during the 

 early summer. Between the lines of asparagus they plant small 

 growing crops on the little ridges during the first years of the 

 plantation, but are careful not to put the large vegetables there, 

 which would shade and otherwise injure the plant. When they 

 plant they spread a handful or so of well-rotted manure over each 

 root, and, so far as I could make out, tliey repeat this every year, 

 removing the soQ very carefully in the autumn down to the roots, 

 putting on them a couple of handfuls of rotten manure, and spreading 

 the earth over again, so that the rain is continually washing manure 

 to the roots. When doing this they remark tlie state of the young 

 roots, and any spot in which one has perished, or has done little 

 good, they mark with a stick, to replace it the following March. 

 Early every spring they pile up a little heap of fine eartli over each 

 crown. When the plantation arrives at its third year they increase 

 tlie size of the little mound, or, in other words, a heap of the finest 



