440 The Principles of Vegetable- Gardening 



pounds is often recommended. About 400 dozen bunches is a fair 

 yield per acre. 



There are few varieties. Only nine were listed by American 

 seedsmen in 1889. Conover Colossal is the leading kind. 



Asparagus has been cultivated for 2,000 years or more. It is 

 native to temperate Europe and Asia. It is one of the lily family, 

 and it has several allies in cultivation in greenhouses for the 

 graceful foliage. These greenhouse species are climbing or 

 drooping. Asparagus is known to botanists as Asparagus officinalis. 

 For an accessible history, see Sturtevant, Amer. Nat., Feb., 1887, 

 pp. 129-131. 



" If I can have a trusty hand to do the gathering, I do not 

 allow a knife to be taken into the field. The gatherer takes two 

 rows at a time, breaking off the shoots just beneath the ground, at 

 the lowest point where they will snap squarely off. In the grow- 

 ing season the field is gone over every day. Asparagus should be 

 sold by weight, like lettuce and pie plant; but, unfortunately, our 

 retailers have not as yet taken this progressive step, and we have 

 asparagus, not only of all grades of quality in the market, but 

 bunches of all lengths and sizes. Since I have used rubber elas- 

 tics instead of string or bark for tying, the process of bunch- 

 ing has been greatly abridged. Five dozen bunches can be put 

 together in an hour by an expert hand and neatly squared at the 

 ends. 



" It is a custom among many of our gardeners, by the use of 

 the knife, to give their bunches the required length by cutting far 

 beneath the surface, lowering the quality of their product and 

 demoralizing the market. By following my method of breaking the 

 stems, there is no waste and the quality of the lower part of the 

 stems is as excellent as any part of them. The doing away with 

 the necessity of careful rules for cutting asparagus and the forms 

 of implements best fitted for the purpose, the simplifying of the 

 tying process, and the elimination of a large proportion of the 

 expense in preparing the field, are decidedly important steps in 

 progressive asparagus culture."— C/i as. W. Garfield before Mich. 

 Hort. Soc, July, 1889. 



The leading insects and diseases are discussed in the following ; 



