206 KITCHEN GARDEN. 
straw or other clean litter. In mild winters the tender 
leaves will be fit for salad all the time, and should not be 
cut, but plucked with the fingers. If the seed used be not 
fresh, it will frequently be many months before it comes up. 
It grows spontaneously in the wheat-fields in -England, in 
which climate it stands the winter in the fields, and affords 
early pasturage to sheep and lambs, from which last cir- 
cumstance it derives one of its common names. 
Asparaginous Plants. 
Asparacus (Asparagus officinalis) is a perennial plant, 
a native of the shores of Britain, where it occurs sparingly, 
and of the steppes in the east of Europe. Though some- 
what unpromising while in a state of nature, it affords, in 
cultivation, an esculent of considerable value, and is there- 
fore grown extensively both in private and in sale gardens. 
The principal varieties are the red-topped and the green- 
topped, of which the latter, while it is less succulent, is 
considered the better flavored. There are numerous sub- 
varieties, such as the Battersea, Gravesend, Giant, &c., 
which differ only slightly from those already mentioned. 
Asparagus, growing naturally on loose sand, should have 
a light, deep soil, through which it may be able to shoot 
its long stringy roots. Two feet and a half is considered 
a desirable depth, but in France the ground is sometimes 
prepared, by trenching and sifting, to the double of that 
depth. A considerable portion of old dung or of. recent 
sea-weed is laid in the bottom of the trench; and another 
top-dressing of well-rotted manure should be digged in pre- 
paratory to planting or sowing. The older horticulturists 
used to grow their asparagus in beds four or five feet wide, 
with intervening alleys of about eighteen inches in breadth. 
At present, in Scotland, it is customary to sow or plant 
