248 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 194. 



1, 1901. Table I shows the plant-food contents of the spring shoots as 

 cut, of the marketable portion of these shoots, and of the tops grown subse- 

 quently to the growing season.^ 



Table I. — Amount of Plant-food Elements in Asparagits Shoots and Tops 



(Pounds per Acre). 



Shoots cut. 



Marketable 

 Shoots. 2 



Tops. 



Nitrogen, . 

 Phosphoric acid, 

 Potash, 

 Lime, 



49.5 

 16.2 



49.4 



40.0 

 13.0 

 40.0 



54.29 

 11.01 

 148.80 

 61.00 



Plant Food taken from the Land annually. 

 The amounts of the leading elements of plant food shown in the above 

 table to have been contained in the shoots (in a commercial crop) represent 

 the total of these elements which in the practice of good growers in Massa- 

 chusetts need be taken into account in determining a system of manuring 

 or fertiUzing which wiU make good to the land the amounts of these 

 elements annually carried off in a large crop, for it is the practice of all 

 our good growers to allow the tops grown after the end of the cutting 

 season to stand during the winter, and to break them down and harrow 

 them into the ground the following spring. The total commercial crop 

 obtained in my garden is probably at least three times the average total 

 obtained by commercial growers. The late Mr. Frank Wheeler of Concord 

 was looked upon by those acquainted with his methods as one of the best 

 informed and most successful asparagus growers in the State. In replying 

 to a communication from me in which I had reported the results obtained 

 in my own garden, Mr. Wheeler writes under date of Sept. 30, 1901 : — 



In regard to the amount of crop per acre, it seems to me that you have got a 

 very large yield. ... I shall have to get at my conclusions in regard to the 

 number of pounds of crop removed in the cutting season by partial guesswork. I 

 think thai, 300 dozen bunches is a Liberal estimate of the average of the crops here- 

 abouts. It is too high for the last two years. One dozen should weigh 15 poimds, 

 making 4,500 pounds per acre, plus butts cut off and thrown away, which I think 

 would not exceed 1,000 or 1,500 pounds, equaling 5,500 ot 6,000 pounds at the most. 



The very large yield which I obtained is doubtless in part accounted 

 for by the fact that the two rows set, though placed only about 3| feet 

 apart, to some extent fed outside of the 6-foot width, the figure used in 

 computing the area occupied by the bed. 



' Actual analyses by H. D. Haskins. 



* These figures are based upon the estimate of the best growers, to the effect that the butts cut 

 off in preparation of the shoots for market constitute on the average one-fifth of the total weight cut. 



