278 
TEE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
root thick ripe rods a foot long ; but the short cuttings make the 
best plants, and to go beyond four joints is to lose ground by taking 
too long steps. Always shade the cuttings, and sprinkle them fre- 
quently, so as to keep them fresh and unexhausted ; and as soon as 
they have begun to grow^ fairly, place them full in the sun, that they 
may grow sturdy and healthy from the first. Seeing how quickly 
geraniums make roots, and how much handsomer the plants grow if 
they are in separate pots fi om the first, the best practice for amateurs 
is to pot each cutting separately in the first instance ; and cuttings 
properly rooted now' in 60-sized pots will not want a shift till next 
March or April, or not at all if for turning out in May, though to 
have such specimens as I grow they ought always to fill 48-sized 
pots, with only one crock and a rich compost, at the spring shifting, 
before they go to their places in the beds ar.d borders. 
S. H. 
THE CULTIVATION OF ASPARAGUS. 
fORTICULTUEAL writers make it the custom to run in 
a pack together like so many hounds laid on one scent, 
and knowing of no other road to reach the game. A 
fine illustration of this is afforded by the current 
instructions on the cultivation of asparagus, w'hich are 
simply the result of successive copyings for a century or two past ; 
each separate writer pretending to give his own experience and the 
latest results of inquiry and observation, while actually copying oft- 
repeated directions, making no additions of new knowledge, correct- 
ing no errors, and giving not a gleam of light from his own indi- 
vidual intelligence. An exception must be made in favour of Mr. 
Earley, who, indeed, has nothing new to say on the cultivation of 
asparagus, but has discovered it to be so valuable a vegetable that 
he would have the poorest cottager devote his attention to it instead 
of to the “everlasting cabbage and potatoes.” 
As to the value of asparagus, every one must decide for himself. 
The man who can make mone}' by growing it for market will justly 
value it, and do his utmost to grow a fine sample. The amateur who 
desires to derive from his garden useful additions to his daily diet 
will do well to think twice before devoting a bed to the production 
of asparagus. It is an elegant, delicate, wholesome, and delicious 
vegetable ; but it is of the least possible use in the animal economy : 
its repute as a purifier of the bleed and a preventive of rheumatism 
is founded on a fact of no value ; and its repute as a nutritious vege- 
table is founded on fiction altogether. Its quick and peculiar action 
on the kidneys tends to no important results, and it contains so few 
of the elements of nutrition that w'e should remove it from the 
category of foods and class it with edible toys and dinner-table curio- 
sities. Let those who love asparagus give their minds to growing 
it, but let no one be deceived by current notions of its value as/dod 
or medicine, for in the proper sense of those terms it is neither. 
