66 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



be fit to take up to put into hot-beds. When you have made your 

 bed, and the heat is sufficiently up, put good earth upon it four 

 inches deep or thereabouts. Thea take up the plants, or, rather 

 the crowns from their bed, and place them upon the earth in the 

 hot-bed, as near together as they can conveniently stand. Take 

 care that the crowns are all of the same height in the hot-bed, ..and 

 bring them from the garden beds with their balls of earth to them, 

 and their roots as little torn as possible. When you have the 

 crowns all neatly and evenly arranged upon the beds, fill all the 

 interstices between them with line earth, give the whole a gentle 

 watering, and then cover the crowns over with fine earth six inches 

 deep. If the bed be a pretty strong one, and, if you give air judi- 

 ciously, and keep frosts effectually out, you may cut asparagus in 

 twenty days from the time that you put the crowns into the bed ; 

 but you must be watchful to give as much air as the season will 

 permit, otherwise the asparagus will be spindling, will be of a pale 

 colour, and will have very little taste. It may so happen that, 

 when you are ready to put your asparagus into the bed, the crowns 

 may be locked up from you by frost. To be prepared for this, put, 

 in due time, more litter, or straw, upon your stock of crowns than 

 the frost can penetrate through. If you wish to have but one hot- 

 bed of asparagus every year, your annual provision of crowns will, 

 of course, be accordingly. These crowns will give you, in the hot- 

 bed, asparagus for a month or six weeks : and that too, if you please^ 

 in January or February. When they have borne their crop, they 

 are of no more use, and will of course, be flung away ; but they 

 are worth the trouble, and I know of nothing more sure to be 

 attended with success. If the weather should prove very severe 

 while the crowns are in the bed, not only thick coverings, but linings, 

 must be resorted to, and these you will find fully described under the 

 head of Cucumber. As to the sorts of asparagus of which some 

 people talk, I, for my part, could never discover any difference ; 

 some talk of red-topped and some of green-topped ; but I am 

 convinced that all the difference that there is is to be traced to 

 the soil, the climate, and the culture. 



122. BALM. — This is a herb purely medicinal. A very little of 

 it is sufficient in any garden. It is propagated from seed, or from 

 offsets. When once planted, the only care required is to see that 

 it does not extend itself too widely. 



123. BASIL is a very sweet annual pot-herb, beingof two sorts. 



