484 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF GARDENING. 



excellent Asparagus fully two months earlier than can be had under natural conditions outdoors. 

 Beds should be so arranged that by heating one or a pair at a time a long succession may be 

 secured. The plan entails much labour, and a large quantity of manure and leaves is 

 indispensable, although that material is useful for manuring ordinary garden ground later. 

 Without doubt the plan is best, if costly at the first, of having a couple of hot-water pipes 

 running between each pair of beds. In that case the dividing trenches need be of but 

 1 8 i n . width, and may be permanently covered over at the top. For such a heating 

 arrangement it is necessary to have a boiler fixed to heat the pipes. A shallow saddle one is 

 best for the purpose. If the outlay is at the first considerable, in the end it is by far the 

 cheapest and most efficacious method of forcing. Beds once established may remain 

 undisturbed for fully ten years, and thus give great production. The common method of 

 forcing necessitates lifting the roots of Asparagus plants absolutely from old beds and placing 

 them in quantity, as needed, into warm places suitable for the purpose, to force into premature 

 growth. It is essential in such case that a good breadth of Asparagus root should be planted in 

 any garden every year to keep up the supply. So treated there will always be a good breadth 

 of roots some seven or eight years old to lilt annually for forcing. This is ordinarily 

 done in some close lean-to shed or house erected at the back' of a range of forcing houses, and 

 in w hich Seakale, Mushrooms, and other products are forced. Asparagus roots are placed on a 

 thin layer of soil on the floor under the upper shelves, and very close together. Good pure 

 soil is then strewn in about the roots, covering the crowns, and the whole are watered. 

 Shutters are fixed to the sides to enclose the Asparagus, and if the temperature of the shed 

 is kept at about Codeg. growth soon ensues. The shoots have to be cut when about 7m. 

 long. No sooner has one bit of root begun to push out shoots than it is needful to get in others, 

 and thus a succession of forced shoots is kept up until the stock" of roofs is exhausted. This 

 plan is practicable only where abundant means are available. The plan of making up 

 a dung bed and filling a frame on it with roots to force is hardly productive enough to repay 

 labour and cost. 



THE TERRACE GARDEN, VRUMMOND CASTLE. 



