328 Asparagus Culture in France. 



La Hollande tardive, improved, and La Hative d'ArgenteuiL The 

 first is described as very fine, the second very strong, and the last as 

 the earhest, most productive, and best. Of course there are various 

 modifications of the plan described herein, and in several instances 

 I saw two rows placed in a rather wide trench in an alternate 

 manner. As to the size and quality of the asparagus produced by 

 this method, there can be but one opinion. Mr. Veitch and many 

 other English horticulturists, who know what gardening is, as well 

 as it is possible to know it, have been, with myself, surprised at it. 

 The same difference holds good in the forced asparagus — the 

 slender pipe-shank productions of the English forcing-house being 

 miserable compared to it 



To sum up : the French mode of cultivating this delicious vege- 

 table differs from our own diametrically in giving each plant 

 abundant room to develope into a magnificent stool, in paying 

 thoughtful attention to the plants at all times, and in planting in a 

 hollow instead of a raised bed, so that as the roots grow up they 

 may have annual dressings of enriching manure. Every year they 

 lay bare the roots, carefully spread good rotten manure over them, 

 and then add an inch or two of soil over that. And in this way 

 they beat us with asparagus as thoroughly as Messrs. Meredith, 

 Henderson, or Miller, beat them with hothouse grapes. A man 

 who knows how to spend two and a half francs for his dinner in 

 Paris enjoys asparagus much longer and of much better quality 

 than many a nobleman in England with a bevy of gardeners. In 

 the first-class restaurants you usually pay high for asparagus, as you 

 do for all other vegetables, but it is served very cheaply in many 

 respectable ones — so much so, indeed, that it is partaken of by all 

 classes. 



As the culture of this vegetable is so important, and the French 

 manage it so well, I venture to go further into detail by giving the 

 following, written by a well-known and very successful cultivator of 

 Argenteuil, and which first appeared in the Gardener s Chronicle. 

 I have made some little alterations, with a view to rendering the 

 meaning simpler and clearer to the reader : — 



