184 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



[June, 



the turnip-crops sown in the summer months. Mr. Patrick 

 Neill, an enthusiastic horticulturist and man of science, says, 

 " One of the easiest remedies is to sow thick, and thereby 

 ensure a sufficiency of plants, both for the fly and crop." 

 Mr. Mean proposes a simple remedy, which is to steep the 

 seed in sulphur water, in the proportion of one ounce of 

 sulphur to a pint of water ; this quantity will be sufficient for 

 three pounds of seed. Mr. Gorrie, in one of his valuable 

 communications in the Caledonian Horticultural Memoirs, 

 however, found that neither steeping in sulphur-water, nor 

 sowing soot, ashes, nor sea-sand in the drills, had any good 

 effect ; he at last tried with success, dusting the plants, while 

 in their seed-leaf with quick-lime, and he adds, that should 

 rain fall before the plants are out of danger fi'om the fly, the 

 operation must be repeated. He calculates that a bushel of 

 lime is sufficient for an acre of di'illed turnips. Mixing old 

 and new seed has been recommended, and successfully prac- 

 tised. The old and new seeds to be of equal quantity, and 

 then dividing the mixture into two parts, one of which is 

 steeped twenty-four hours in water ; by this means, four dif- 

 ferent periods of vegetation are procured, and consequently 

 four chances present themselves of escaping the fly. 



ASPARAGUS. 



In the cutting of the shoots of asparagus, attend to the 

 directions given in the preceding month, but it is advisable to 

 terminate the general cutting for the year about the twentieth 

 or twenty-fourth of this month, otherwise the roots will be 

 considerably weakened, for as long as the produce is cut, the 

 roots continue to send up new shoots, although decreasing 

 every time in size. Thus, if the cutting be continued late in 

 the season, the roots will be thereby considerably exhausted, 

 and the produce of the succeeding year proportionably di- 

 minished. 



The season of this useful vegetable may be prolonged, if 

 attention be paid to the annual making of new beds, and this 

 practice possesses this great advantage, that it admits of the 

 older beds being destroyed, the cutting of which may be con- 



