32 



ASPARAGUS CULTURE. 



By the above we can easily see that the difference between 

 the difficulty of procuring good seed and good plants is 

 enormous ; we therefore recommend the amateur and small 

 grower to give up all ideas of raising Asparagus from seed. 



The Age and Strength of the Plants.— Two-year- 

 old stools are still planted by some, but for a long time past 

 practical growers have given up planting stools of more than 

 a year old. The plant from a two-year-old stool is always a 

 bad one, no matter what may have been the amount of care 

 which has been bestowed on it, for the reason that it produces 

 too many heads, which consequently lack strength and sap, 

 General weakness is the consequence, and the crops are all 

 puny and of poor quality. Asparagus is a plant of vigorous 

 growth, but no plant in proper health would stand transplant- 

 ing the second year without suffering from it; it would, in 

 fact, give an abortive growth, which would never produce 

 good heads. A plant which has come off a healthy stock is 

 sufficiently strong for planting at a year old, and all of an 

 older growth should be neglected. Great attention, therefore, 

 is necessary in our choice of plants, and, as we have said 

 before, bad goods are always dear, more especially in the case 

 of Asparagus. The strength or size of the stools is of little 

 consequence if the seed has been good, so that at the end of 

 the second year there is but little difference between them. 



Form of the Ground for Planting*.— If you wish to 

 plant a plot of Asparagus distinct from the rest of the kitchen 

 garden, you must open several trenches at about 36 in. apart, 

 10 in. deep, and 10 in, wide, throwing up on each side the 

 earth taken out, so as to form a mound, as shown in fig. 4 at 

 rrr. The line which passes beneath the letters hhh shows 

 the level of the earth, and the upper part of the earth 

 taken out of the trenches. The letters mm (fig. 4) 

 show the stools in their proper position before they 

 have been covered with a layer of earth. It will be noticed 

 that the sides of the trenches are almost perpendicular below 

 ground, and that above ground they form an angle with the 



