ASPARAGUS— liAISING, GR()\VJN(;, AM) i-OKClNG. 
41 
Cambridgeshire, Worcestershire (especially the Evesham district), Essex 
(about Colchestei-), and in the Thames \'alley near London. The best 
home-grown outdoors Asparagus that is sent to Covent Garden market is 
produced in these districts. 
In Scotland, the south-western parts, comprising the counties of Ayr, 
Wigton, and Kirkcudbright, are specially favourable. The soil in many 
places is a rich sandy loam, and the maritime situation, together with 
the influence of the moisture-laden atmosphere from the Gulf Stream, 
have a very beneficial effect. Its cultivation is, however, almost entirely 
confined to private gardens. 
On the cultivation of Asparagus in Scotland, it may be here interesting 
to quote from a paper on the supply of vegetables to the Edinburgh and 
Glasgow markets, read before the Scottish Horticultural Association by 
Mr. J. Scarlett, of Inveresk. He says, " There is practically no Asparagus 
grown in Scotland for market. English, French, and Spanish have 
ousted home-grown to such an extent that the one or two growers who 
used to bring anything like a quantity have discontinued its cultivation. 
This is due probably more to the lateness of the home crop, compared 
with that of other countries, than to any unsuitableness of soil or climate." 
Rich sandy soil of good depth is naturally the best adapted for 
Asparagus, and in such soil its cultivation is an easy matter. But in 
these days, whatever the nature of the soil of a garden may be, the 
cultivation of Asparagus is looked upon as an absolute necessity, and the 
fact is often lost sight of that if the soil be of a clayey nature and 
shallow, the produce under such conditions cannot possibly bear com- 
parison with that from a soil naturally suitable for the growth of this 
plant. With labour and materials at command, heavy, clayey soil 
may be in time brought into a light, porous condition by the addition of 
sand of the best kind procurable — sea, river, or grit, sandy deposits from 
drains, road scrapings, burned earth, and lime, brick, and rubble from old 
buildings, all these are excellent for rendering soil permanently porous. 
Whatever the soil may be, leaf mould, peat, light fibrous loam, old 
hot-bed material, sea-w^eed, and farmyard manure (especially that from 
cows), I have found to be the best fertilizers. The last-named is 
practically indispensable, for the soil can scarcely be too highly manured, 
as good quality depends on quickness of growth, which is assisted by 
richness of soil. 
Asparagus is a deep-rooting plant. Frequently after doing away with 
old beds I have found the soil permeated with roots to the depth of thirty 
inches ; consequently in preparing the soil for planting, it should be 
made thirty inches deep by trenching, adding, and mixing in the materials 
already named, from the bottom to the surface as the trenching proceeds, 
in quantities as required according to the nature of the soil. The 
advantages of deep trenching and increased depth of rooting medium are 
that the roots descend so that they do not suffer so much from want of 
moisture in dry seasons, and it also assists the free percolation of water 
in wet seasons. For although Asparagus is a seaside plant it will not 
thrive in stagnant ground, and if the subsoil is of a clayey, impervious 
nature, insufficiently drained, this defect must be remedied by agricultural 
drains, put in before doing the trenching, or a layer of a few inches of old 
