A year-old asparagus plant in flower. Do not allow the 

 plants to maKe seed 



Set each plant on a little mound about 

 one inch high 



Trench ready for planting. The bamboo staKes are set to 

 plant and tie to 



Slow but Sure Asparagus Culture— By Allen French, 



Massa- 

 chusetts 



RAISING ASPARAGUS FROM SEED INSTEAD OF SQUANDERING MONEY, AS HUNDREDS OF INEXPERIENCED 

 PEOPLE DO, ON TWO- OR THREE-YEAR-OLD ROOTS, WHICH WILL NEVER GIVE AS GOOD RESULTS 



ASPARAGUS, our best early vegetable 

 and our longest-lived, is commonly 

 set out from roots bought of a seedsman or 

 nurseryman. There are, however, advant- 

 ages in growing plants from seed. Well 

 fertilized and well watered from the start 

 they will be much stronger than if grown 

 under ordinary conditions of field culture, 

 and will thus better resist rust. Again, most 

 of our seedsmen offer for sale only two-year- 

 old roots, while some even urge three-year 

 roots upon the purchaser. Now it has been 

 established by conclusive tests that asparagus 

 does best when set out from one-year-old 

 roots, and that in a very few years the weight 

 of the crop will be considerably larger than 

 that from older roots. 

 Under these circum- 

 stances it is wise to 

 raise the plants from 

 seed. 



It is the old custom 

 to sow about an 

 ounce of seed to sixty 

 feet of drill, and to 

 let the plants grow 

 without thinning. 

 But here it is well 

 to consider the habit 

 of the plant, as illus- 

 trated in the pho- 

 tographs. The vital 

 part is the crown, a 

 bulb-like central por- 

 tion, which, so long 

 as the plant continues 

 to grow, adds others 

 to itself. From the 

 base of the crowns 

 spring the shoots. 



The crown and shoots are fed by thick 

 storage-roots, which in turn are maintained 

 by the small feeding-roots. All of these 

 parts are delicate and brittle. It is the 

 storage-roots which make possible the con- 

 tinuous spring cutting, and which allow the 

 easy transplanting of asparagus. 



SEEDS SLOW IN STARTING 



The seeds are slow of germination, and 

 in a late spring will sometimes require 

 twenty days before they send up shoots. 

 The plant, while still clinging to its seed, at 

 once forms its crown, and is early capable 

 of sending up a second shoot if the first is 

 broken off. In thinning, therefore, it is 



• 



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4 



■ 5* ' 



■- .--ho. 



2^ 





1 









x. r 



An asparagus root at the end of the first season from seed- 



158 



not sufficient merely to pull the shoot in 

 order to destroy the plant: the crown must 

 come up also. Moreover, before many 

 weeks the plant of its own accord sends up a 

 second shoot, and where there are several 

 roots in the space of an inch their shoots will 

 so mingle together that the plants cannot be 

 distinguished from above ground. The 

 work of thinning such thickly sown plants, 

 if not early and savagely prosecuted, thus 

 becomes impossible without digging out the 

 crowns. 



Plant the seed "when the ground is fit," 

 that is, as soon as the frost is out and the 

 soil sufficiently dry to be workable. The 

 time will thus vary with the soil and the 

 season, from the first 

 to the third week in 

 April, or in northerly 

 localities later still. 

 Asparagus may thus 

 be sowed with the 

 other early seeds, as 

 soon as the ground 

 has been turned over 

 and smoothed off. 

 If the planting has 

 been delayed, some 

 time may be gained 

 by soaking the seed 

 from one to two days. 

 The seed should 

 be the best that can 

 be got. As to variety, 

 it will be well to 

 choose one that has 

 done well in the 

 locality. That most 

 desirable thing, a 

 -two feet across rust - proof variety, 



