64 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



well-prepared compost, partly consisting of rotten dung, to the 

 depth of two inches or a little more. In the spring, in March, 

 throw upon the beds three inches deep of earth out of the alleys. 

 Break it very fine, and attend to keeping the sides of the bed very 

 smooth and erect. This is the third year after sowing ; and if 

 the ground be good in its nature, and if all these instructions 

 be duly attended to, there will be some heads of asparagus fit to 

 cut. The four beds will contain 588 stools or crowns ; and if you 

 were to cut only four heads of asparagus from each crown, you 

 would have above twenty hundred bundles of asparagus, a hundred 

 in each bundle. However, unless the crowns be very strong, it 

 would be best to wait another year ; and then, without cutting any 

 but what would be very fine, you would have more than any family 

 of reasonable size would want to consume. In the fall of this third 

 year, cut down the haulm as before ; put on manure again as be- 

 fore ; and, in the next spring, take another two and a half inches of 

 earth out of the alleys and put on the beds, as before. The alleys 

 will now be deep enough, and you need never throw any more earth 

 upon the beds, except the shovellings up of what has fallen into them 

 from the beds by washing or crumbling ; and this ought to be done 

 every spring, in March. Every fall, the haulm ought to be cut off; 

 and some little matter of manure, rather of a littery sort, scattered 

 on ; and this ought to be forked up every spring, previous to the 

 shovelling up of the alleys. One very great fault, in the manage- 

 ment of asparagus beds, is to suffer the seed to drop and to remain 

 on the beds. This seed will grow and become plants ; and, in a 

 short time you have the bed all in confusion, young ones growing 

 at the top, and old ones growing underneath. Therefore, the 

 haulm ought to be cut off before the seed drops ; and if it should 

 by accident drop in the cutting of the haulm, the seed ought to 

 be swept carefully up with a broom and carried away. It is the 

 practice of many persons, and of most persons, to sow lettuces 

 onions, and radishes, upon asparagus beds, which are taken off 

 before the haulm of the asparagus rises to anyc onsiderable height, 

 but this is a very bad practice : these p'ants rob the asparagus, 

 they prevent its due cultivatiokii ; and, in short, the injury to you 

 as a gardener is much greater than its good. In the cutting of 

 asparagus, great care must be taken to use a proper instrument, 

 and to make the cut in a proper manner. The instrument is a 

 knife made with teeth, like a saw, which ought to be put down 



