ASPARAGUS CULTURE. 



503 



when grown among the vines^ say at a distance of about a 

 yard apart. The little trenches are about a foot wide and 

 eight inches below the level of the ground — looking deeper, 

 however, from the soil being piled up. 



The young plants are placed in these trenches very care- 

 fully. A little mound is made with the hand in each spot 

 where a plant is to be placed so as to elevate the crown a 

 little and permit of the spreading out of the roots in a per- 

 fectly safe manner. In fact they seem to be about as par- 

 ticular as regards depositing the young plants in the first 

 instance, as a good grape-grower is about his young vines. 

 They plant in March and April — using any kind of manure 

 that can be had, but chiefly here, so far as I could see, the 

 refuse of the town — the ashes, 

 old vegetables, rags, and other 



matters, that the people throw -"^r^- ^imh ' ' ^ 



before their doors, and which - 



the dust-carts take away in the CxC'^^^N^ ' '■ ■ • 

 morning. They are very par- n. ^^^^^^^ ."^"bf^*^^; ■ , ^ ' 

 ticular to destroy the weeds, "''^V'^^"^!'^^v>^-V^^^ 

 and they also take good care to tHs figure shows the depth of the 



destroy all sorts of insect successive annual earthings given 

 ^, • • ,n • to the Asparagus. After four or 



enemies m the mornings, espe- years' growth the ridges dis- 



cially during the early summer. appear, and the highest points of 

 T, , " ., „ . the grounds are those over the 



Eetween the lines of Asparagus crowns of the roots, 

 they plant small growing crops 



on the little ridges during the first years of the plantation, but 

 are careful not to put the large vegetables there, which would 

 shade and otherwise injure the plant. When they plant 

 they spread a handful or so of well-rotted manure over each 

 root, and they repeat this every year, removing the soil very 

 carefully in the autumn down to the roots, putting on them 

 a couple of handfuls of rotten manure, and spreading the 

 earth over again, so that the rain is continually washing 

 nutriment to the roots. When doing this they notice the 

 state of the young roots, and any spot in which one has 

 perished, or has done little good, they mark with a stick, to 

 replace it the following March. Early every spring they 

 pile up a little heap of fine earth over each crown. When 



