12 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



had to be managed with tact, but it ended in the shooting 

 into a yard convenient for the purpose of rubbish of this kind, 

 costing never more than one shilling the cubic yard, with a trifle 

 added to the carters. This stuff was roughly sorted to remove 

 from it bricks, laths, and other material of an objectionable 

 nature, and being thus purified it was wheeled to the site of an 

 intended Asparagus bed. There had been provided in time a 

 store of turf, mud from a pond, and a heap of refuse from the 

 kitchen garden, moulded over to prevent annoyance. The bed 

 was made of this mixture 6 feet wide and 3 feet high. The 

 length is of no consequence, but it happened for convenience 

 that all the beds made in this way had a length of 60 feet. 

 There was always left a 6-foot space between the beds, which 

 was increased by subsequent management, as will be seen. 



If the bed was made in summer it was at once sown with 

 winter Spinach ; if made in winter or spring it was planted in 

 March with early Potatoes. This preliminary cropping was to 

 allow time for the stuff to settle and amalgamate, and that 

 digging and other operations might temper its crudities. When 

 the preliminary crop was removed, the bed was dug over, stones 

 and bricks thrown out, a good body of fat dung laid in, and then 

 the bed was sown with two rows of Asparagus at a distance from 

 each other of 36 inches. 



Asparagus seed may be sown at any time from the 1st of 

 February to the 1st of August ; the earlier it is sown the better, 

 but late sowing will make a plant before winter, and it will live 

 to make a vigorous start in the following spring. The sowing 

 completed, the beds were neatly cut down to 4£ feet, which placed 

 the outside rows at a distance of 18 inches from the boundary 

 line of the bed. 



The cultivation in the early stages consisted in weeding and 

 thinning, the plants being successively thinned until, in the 

 second growing season, they were 3 feet apart. In the latter part 

 of July and through the month of August the bed is well soaked 

 with liquid manure put on quietly from a hose, and care is taken 

 not to remove the dead straw of the summer growth, for that is 

 useful to the plant, until November, when it must be cleared off. 

 But the straw containing seed is all cut out as soon as the berries 

 are fully coloured. Every year, in July or August, as may be 

 convenient, and as the state of the weather may influence the 



