THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
91 
the cultivator is advised to make his mind easy and leave 
his asparagus-beds to take care of themselves to a very great 
extent. A thin sprinkling of salt may be put on the beds 
once a month from February to July ; but we prefer to use a 
heavy dressing in March, to kill the weeds and feed the plant 
for the season. As a rule, the best time to transplant is 
March and April, and seed-beds that are to stand for a crop 
should, at that season, be thinned to a foot apart every way 
in poor or middling ground, and to eighteen inches apart in 
ground known to produce strong growth. If, however, the 
time for spring-planting be lost, the plants may be moved 
with safety from the middle of July to the end of September, 
and dull, showery weather should be waited for ; and the 
job, when once commenced, should be completed as carefully 
and quickly as possible. 
The Routine Culture is very simple. The soil should be 
deeply trenched and made as light and gritty as the materials 
available permit. If the situation is damp raise the beds 
above the level, and always select an open position exposed 
to the full sunshine, for shade is deadly to asparagus, although 
shelter not producing shade is beneficial, promoting, what is 
always desired, an early growth to compete in value with 
forced asparagus. Never allow the roots to be exposed to 
the air for any length of time, for they are succulent and 
thin-skinned, and soon suffer if their juices are drawn from 
them by evaporation. Hence it is not well to buy shop roots, 
for the length of time they are necessarily exposed seriously 
impairs their vigour to the injury of the purchaser. As the 
plantation is expected to stand for several years, never a foot 
should go on it except through sheer necessity, for if the 
ground becomes much consolidated the plant ceases to thrive ; 
hence the importance of deep digging in the first instance, 
and the need for stony and gritty substances in the staple. 
We have gathered the grandest asparagus ever seen from beds 
twenty years old ; therefore it may be concluded that it will 
pay to do the work well in the first instance. As to cutting, 
the rule is to begin in the third year, and that is a good rule 
for a poor soil ; but cutting may begin the second year on a 
good soil, and it should cease at the end of May in early 
districts, and at the end of June in late districts. The plants 
then have time to make up for losses, but it would seriously 
impair their vigour if we were to cut until the middle of 
