556 Commercial Asparagus Cultivation. [oct., 



autumn of the same year the trench is completed and the 

 plants fully earthed up. An old practice is to place a good 

 covering of fine decayed manure along the rows, exactly over 

 the crowns, during March or before the blades commence to 

 show ; some growers, however, prefer to apply the manure 

 between the rows and not along them, and it is said that in 

 this way the food reaches the feeding roots rather than the 

 strong storage roots surrounding the crown. 



The manure — or the earthing-up— should suffice to blanch 

 a portion of the base of the blades ; but under no circum- 

 stances should this be overdone, or quite half the entire 

 length of the " grass" will be white and useless. In the 

 fourth spring the beds are forked over, stones and weeds 

 removed from the trenches, and the soil afterwards hoe-drawn 

 into trenches. The beds are then kept clean by hoeing and 

 weeding. Cutting is commenced and continued until about 

 the end of June; if cutting is ever done in the third year, it 

 must not be prolonged for more than two weeks. In the 

 autumn the beds are dug over and a light dressing of 10 cwt. 

 of well-rotted farmyard manure spread over the surface. 

 Generally speaking, no stalks should be allowed to grow up 

 to the middle of June, and many growers adopt a rotation in 

 cutting, so that some portions of the plantation are cut for 

 a shorter time than others to avoid exhaustion. 



After the cutting season liberal cultivation is required, and 

 every Uerry must be stripped off as soon as it is set ; otherwise, 

 if allowed to develop and ripen, the strength and vitality of 

 the root will be impaired. It is customary to leave the tops 

 as a sort of protection during winter, especially where the 

 usual winter application of manure is withheld. Many com- 

 mercial growers prolong the cutting period into midsummer, 

 or even until July. The feeding, of course, largely deter- 

 mines the duration of the beds, though the space between 

 the plants and the severity of the cutting may also have a 

 great deal to do with it. Good commercial growers of as- 

 paragus rareh r adopt the questionable practice of patching 

 up an old plantation ; they usually give the beds a lease of 

 about 15 years for profitable production, although in some of 

 the Evesham gardens, 20 years is not uncommon. 



Pests and Diseases. — Asparagus suffers but little from 



