516 



FORCING THP. ASPARAGUS, SEA-KALE, RHUBARB, 



days being gaiierally very hot, strawberries are in great demand, and, it 

 being too hot for them in the houses, they are sometimes very scarce. After 

 the fruit is gathered, the plants are dug up and thrown away, and the pit 

 planted with melons. By following this simple routine, year after year, 

 you will be able to supply a family, however large, with abundant crops of 

 this beautiful fruit, and in the highest state of perfection, at a very trifling 

 expense. — (^Gard. Mag. xvii. p. 265.) 



1094. The Alpine strawberry continues bearing in the open air till it is 

 checked by frost, and if a month previously to this a number of plants have 

 been planted in a bed of soil on heat, or potted and placed in a frame, pit, 

 or strawberry-house, quite near the glass, and a temperature kept up of 

 from 45° to 55° during night, and from 55° to 60° during day, the plants will 

 continue bearing during winter ; and they may be succeeded by other 

 plants kept through the winter in cold frames, and put into heat about the 

 middle of February. This mode is very successfully practised in the 

 neighbourhood of Paris. — (See Gordon, in Gard. Mag. for 1841, p. 269.) 



Sect. XI. — Forcing the Asparagus, Sea-kale, Rhubarb, Chiccory, 

 and other fleshy roots. 



1095. These different vegetables may be forced where they stand in the 

 open garden, by placing hot dung over them ; or when they are planted in 

 rows or beds, by digging out trenches between eighteen inches or two feet 

 wide, and two feet deep, and filling up these trenches with hot dung. Or 

 the plants may be taken up before the forcing season, with as many of the 

 roots as possible, and planted close together in a house, frame, pit, or even 

 cellar, on a bed of fermenting matter, or of soil heated artificially, at first 

 to 40° or 50°, and gradually raised to 60", 65°, or 70°. Nothing can be more 

 simple or easy than this kind of forcing, since it is merely the excitement by 

 heat and moisture, without or with but very little light and change of air, of 

 the mass of vegetable nutriment laid up in the root-stalk. 



1096. Asparagus. — In the beginning of winter, begin six weeks before it 

 is proposed to have a crop ; when the days are longer, five weeks, or but a 

 calendar month before. Those who wish to have asparagus on the table at 

 Christmas should prepare for forcing it in Noveniber. The temperature 

 at night should never be under 50°. In the day-time, keep the maximum 

 down to 62°. If by the heat of the bark or dung, and the use of mats or 

 canvas covers at night, the thermometer stand as high as 50°, fire-heat will 

 be unnecessary ; but otherwise recourse must be had to the flues or hot- water 

 pipes. A very moderate degTce of fire-heat, however, will be sufficient ; 

 and a small fire made in the evening will generally answer the purpose. 

 Sometimes in dull, hazy weather a fire may be necessary in the morning, 

 in order to enable you to admit air more freely, and to dry off damp. Air 

 must be freely admitted every day in some cases, to allow any steam to pass 

 off\, and for the sake of the colour and flavour of the plants. As the buds 

 begin to appear, as large a portion of air must be daily admitted as the 

 weather will permit. When the asparagus bed has, after planting, stood 

 two or three days, and when the heat has begun to warm the roots, give the 

 plants a sufficient watering. Pour it out of a pot, with the rose on it, to 

 imitate a shower of rain ; let the bed have enough to moisten the mould 

 well, and to wash it in among the roots. Repeat such waterings now and 

 then. By the time the buds have come up three inches above the surface, 



