ASPARAGUS. 



6,3 



close by the side of the shoot which you are going to cut off, and 

 then you separate the shoot from the crown by a push almost per- 

 pendicular ; for otherwise, you might destroy three or four shoots 

 in the cutting off of one. Those shoots vvhich you do not cut off 

 for the purpose of eating ai-e left to go on to become haulm, and 

 these are cut down annually at the time and in the manner de- 

 scribed. Such is the manner of raising asparagus from seed. The 

 manner of- raising from plants is this : you sow the asparagus in 

 March or April, in the same manner as described for the beds, in 

 some other spot ; and, when the plants come up, you thin them 

 carefully to the distance of about three inches apart, keeping them 

 very clean all the summer. In October, or in March the next 

 year, you make your beds as before ; and, instead of sowing seed 

 in the three rows upon each bed, as before directed, plant these 

 plants at a foot apart in these rows, p-acing their crowns about 

 half an inch belo^v the top of the ground, and then covering 

 the beds over an inch or two deep with good compost, or fine 

 manure of some sort or other, having amongst it some salt, not 

 too much, or a pretty good portion of wood-ashes. You then 

 proceed with these beds, autumn and spring, precisely in the same 

 way as with the beds of sown asparagus ; and you may, perhaps, 

 have them fit to cut a year earlier ; and, if great care be taken, that 

 will certainly be the case. The asparagus is so excellent a plant ; it 

 is so good, and is so great a favourite, that it is one of the few 

 garden plants that is vv orth the trouble and expense of a hot-bed, 

 and particularly as the trouble which it gives is in an inverse 

 proportion to its value. To have asparagus in hot beds, which 

 you may have if you will, from November until the time that it 

 comes in the open ground, this is the method : make a bed ac- 

 cording to the rules laid down in Chapter III. The bed ought to 

 be strong or weak, that is to say high or low, according to the 

 season of the year. In November, for instance, you want but little 

 heat : in January and February a great deal : less in ]SIarch, and 

 scarcely any in April. To have the plants, make'a bed the rows 

 on which should be seven inches apart, and the plants six inches 

 apart in the row. Fill this bed v;ith plants that have stood one 

 year elsewhere in the manner before-mentioned. Let them stand 

 two years in this bed, and be managed there just in the same 

 manner as if they were going to stand there for ever. At the end of 

 these two years, as soon as the I aulm turns yellow, the plants will 



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