ASPARAGINOUS PLANTS. — ASPARAGUS. 



121 



the beds well elevated, in cold soils and 

 situations, enables the solar rays to reach 

 the roots better than when planted on a 

 level surface. 



Subsequent cultivation. — We need hardly 

 say that the beds should be kept free 

 of weeds, as well as the alleys between 

 them. The plants on seed-sown beds 

 should be allowed three years to establish 

 themselves, before any buds are gathered. 

 Those on transplanted beds, if the roots 

 were strong at planting, and have made 

 good progress since, may have a few of 

 the strongest buds gathered the second 

 year ; the third, if all has gone on well, 

 will admit of regular cutting. The prac- 

 tice of cropping the transplanted beds is 

 injudicious, and that of cropping the 

 alleys between the beds, although con- 

 stantly done, is of questionable utility, 

 because whatever crop is planted has a 

 tendency to rob the beds; and the roots, 

 which often extend towards them, run 

 great risk of being either cut off or very 

 materially injured. Mr Judd, in the 

 " Transactions of the London Horticul- 

 tural Society," vol. ii., thus very properly 

 speaks on this point. Having dug out 

 the alleys the first season, instead of re- 

 peating the operation the next, he lays 

 on a coating of rich dung 3 inches 

 thick, and carefully forks it into the beds 

 and alleys — a process he continues in 

 winter annually, " never digging out 

 the alleys any more, as it is known the 

 asparagus plant forms a fresh crown 

 every season ; and sometimes it happens 

 that in a few years the crown will increase 

 almost into the alley, so that in digging out 

 this you must inevitably spoil that plant. 

 If this is not the case when the beds are 

 in a good condition, the roots will be sure 

 to work out at the sides into the alleys ; 

 and by digging out the latter, these roots 

 must be cut off, as you will often see them 

 exposed all the winter, before dung can 

 be got to fill the alleys up. Rather than be 

 treated in this way, they had better be 

 without anything all the winter, as aspa- 

 ragus does not suffer generally by frost." 

 The practice of covering the beds in 

 autumn with leaves or litter is sufficiently 

 absurd, yet top-dressing them with rich 

 manure is of great advantage ; but this 

 dressing, whatever it may be, should be 

 covered with a couple of inches at least 

 of soil, to prevent the escape of its gaseous 



matter into the air. The rains of winter 

 will wash down to the roots much of its 

 fertilising properties ; and in spring, part 

 of it may be carefully raked off, and left 

 to rot in the alleys* That which remains 

 on the beds will prevent the crowns from 

 rising above the surface, and tend to ex- 

 clude the drought. It has been recom- 

 mended to uncover the crowns during 

 winter, and to cover them over again in 

 spring — a very useless, if not an inju- 

 dicious practice. The surface of the beds 

 should be slightly stirred up with a fork in 

 spring, and before the buds show above 

 ground ; and three times during the 

 growing season of the plants, a thin 

 sprinkling of salt should be applied to 

 the surface, and, if possible, before rain. 

 Upon the whole, disturbing the ground 

 in the alleys, further than loosening it to 

 the depth of 4 or 5 inches with a three- 

 pronged fork every spring, is reprehen- 

 sible ; and still more so, digging them out 

 in deep trenches, and piling the soil over 

 the beds, as practised by many of the 

 London market-gardeners, who do so to 

 obtain stalks, or grass, as they term it, 

 nearly a yard in length — all of which, 

 excepting about 3 inches at the top, is 

 perfectly useless, and well defined " drum- 

 sticks " in " The Gardeners' Chronicle " — 

 an immense expenditure of the energies 

 of the plant, for no other purpose, that 

 we could ever divine, than to encumber 

 the dust-holes in London. The practice 

 is still persisted in, notwithstanding the 

 merited castigation the advocates of such 

 an absurd practice received a year or two 

 ago from Mr Cuthill and the editor of 

 that journal. 



Top-dressings, however, can be of far 

 less advantage to the plants than laying a 

 good foundation for them at the first 

 making of the beds, because the spongi- 

 olets, or food-absorbing parts of the roots, 

 are in all cases at their very extremities, 

 however deep they may be ; and hence it 

 would be excellent, had we the means of 

 applying food to them by means of a sort 

 of subterranean system of irrigation, so 

 that the food might be presented to those 

 parts of the roots which are designed 

 expressly for its absorption. No doubt, 

 much of the success of the noted asparagus 

 grown along the banks of the Thames is 

 owing to the food conveyed to the roots 

 by the rise of the tide, supplying it at a 



