154 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



April, 1908 



The Forced Culture of Asparagus in France 



By Jacques Boyer 



were generally 

 although they were still em- 

 ployed by a few progressive 

 lovers of horticulture. The 

 chroniclers describe, for ex- 

 ample, a banquet given in 

 the winter of 1249 at Co- 

 logne, by Albert the Great, 

 at which appeared, among 

 other curiosities, blooming 

 rose bushes and trees laden 

 with fruit. Hotbeds and 

 coldframes were introduced 

 by French gardeners at 

 about the epoch of the 

 Renaissance, and a little 

 later Olivier de Serres rec- 

 ommended the use of bell 

 glasses for forcing melons. 

 The luxurious Louis XIV 

 brought early vegetables 

 into vogue, and in the eigh- 

 teenth century greenhouses 

 and hothouses began to ap- 

 pear in Europe. The forc- 

 ing houses for fruit erected 

 by Frederic the Great in 



CCORDING to some authorities the an- 

 cient Romans were acquainted with the 

 art of producing vegetables and flowers 

 out of season. During the Middle Ages, 

 however, 

 m e thods 

 of forcing 

 neglected, 



1752 are still standing at Potsdam; and visitors to Hampton 

 Court in England may still admire the famous grapevine 

 which has grown under glass for more than a century, and 

 now covers an area of about two thousand seven hundred and 



Storing Freshly Cut Asparagus in the Cellar 



Women Bunching Asparagus for Market 



fifty square feet. Finally, 

 Bonnemain's invention of 

 the thermo-siphon, or sys- 

 tem of heating with hot 

 water, and its application to 

 hothouses by Gautier gave, 

 about 1830, a great impetus 

 to forced culture. 



Still the commercial ex- 

 ploitation of forcing houses 

 on a large scale in France is 

 only about fifteen years old. 

 In these great establish- 

 ments, the largest of which 

 are to be found in the 

 French departments of 

 Aisne and Nord, plants of 

 many varieties are grown in 

 winter. Until recently the 

 production of grapes, cher- 

 ries, peaches, pears and 

 apples from February to 

 June, and of lilacs and other 

 flowers in winter, has en- 

 grossed the attention of the 

 greenhouse proprietors, but 

 several asparagus houses 



