ASPARAGUS CULTURE. 



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calculated to last some years, but, failing these, any Horn- 

 beam, Hazel, or stakes made from any other underwood 

 will do. 



Blanching. — The question of blanching it, more or less, 

 is apart from the question of cultivation, and people may 

 adopt the only true system of culture without blanching, if 

 such be their taste. But a closer acquaintance with the 

 subject will probably teach many that there is something in 

 this despised system of blanching, which so many persons, 

 lamentably ignorant on the subject beyond experiences of 

 their own overcrowded and ill-grown beds, rush into the 

 gardening papers to declare it to be an absurd practice. All 

 good judges and good growers know that it is necessary in the 

 highest culture, and to secure the most delicate flavour, and 

 also to prevent the rising shoots breaking in warm weather 

 into scales or leaves before they are fairly developed. The 

 best foreign Asparagus is blanched by piling little mounds 

 of friable earth over the stools in spring. 



Home Culture. — Our markets are full of Asparagus in 

 spring, grown in other countries, sometimes hundreds of miles 

 from London. It is a vegetable which perhaps more than any 

 other loses quality every day after it is cut. This is one reason 

 why it should be grown in our own country. The soil and 

 the climate of England, in almost every county, are admirably 

 suited for the production of Asparagus. Nevertheless, not 

 only do we not supply our own markets, but many possess- 

 ing estates cannot get a good dish without sending to Covent 

 Garden for it. All this is wholly unnecessary, for every 

 farmer's garden and every cottage garden might grow it well. 

 In large places, where a few beds formed on a costly and 

 wrong principle now furnish a very limited supply of very 

 poor Asparagus, there ought to be an abundance for every- 

 body. Our markets ought to be supplied by our own 

 people, the early supplies coming from the south and the 

 late ones from our northern counties. 



Forcing Asparagus. — In order to force Asparagus to 

 produce a crop early enough to be quite out of season, ifc 



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