2.31 
ASPARAGUS — LAYERING. 
coming into a bearing state. The manage- 
ment is the same in both cases, except in 
making the drills deeper to receive the roots, 
burying the crowns about two inches below 
the surface. The after culture is nearly simi- 
lar to that above, the principal points to attend 
to being to add a good coat of dung every 
season ; the rough of which should be raked 
off into the alleys in the spring, and the sur- 
face forked over, great care being observed 
not to injure the crowns of the roots. The 
sides of the beds are also generally pared 
down, and an addition made to the surface of 
the bed from the alleys, so as to have six or 
eight inches of light earth over the roots, by 
which means the shoots are blanched, and also 
rendered long enough for use. In light soils 
this plan is very good ; but in heavy soils, a 
covering of sand, leaves, or any similar mate- 
rial answers better, than to lay such a thick- 
ness of heavy earth on them. In the autumn, 
the stalks should be cut over and cleared away, 
and a layer of dung or other material spread 
on the beds for protection from frost. None 
of the shoots should be cut for use after peas 
become tolerably plentiful, as late cutting 
weakens the roots for another year. In cut- 
ting, care must be taken to avoid injury to the 
other shoots still below the surface ; but those 
■who like a fine flavoured vegetable, and are 
not too nice how they look when cooked, will 
do well to let the shoots grow at least six 
inches above the soil, so as to acquire their 
natural colour, and it will then be easy to 
break them over with the finger and thumb 
an inch or two below the surface, without 
danger to the advancing shoots. 
Asparagus is very easily forced, and by that 
means may be obtained all through the winter. 
The plants for forcing must not be less than 
three years old ; but when of greater age, are 
much more productive. Almost any struc- 
ture, where a moderate heat is maintained, is 
suitable for this purpose; but one of the btst 
is a pit or frame on a moderate hot-bed. 
Having laid a slight covering of any common 
mould on the bed, the roots are to be placed on 
this as close as they will go, when they should 
also be covered two or three inches with any 
light mould. By keeping the lights covered 
with mats, the shoots are easily blanched, or 
as easily obtained in a green state if wished, 
by allowing free access of light. Air should 
be given occasionally, especially if the bed 
prove over warm, and the shoots draw up too 
weak. Sixty degrees is the highest that should 
ever be allowed, but less will be found prefer- 
able. As the roots are quite useless after they 
are forced, the shoots should be cut as long as 
any worth using are produced, and the roots 
then thrown away. The best plan of obtain- 
ing a supply of roots for this purpose, is to 
yearly sow as much ground for succession as 
it is intended to break up, of course using the 
oldest beds for that purpose. 
In some large establishments, the beds in 
the open ground are so constructed, as to be 
forced at pleasure, either with hot dung or 
leaves; or as at Frogmore, with hot water. 
For this purpose the beds may be made three 
feet wide, the sides being formed by four-inch 
open brick-work, the alleys being about two 
and a half feet wide between the brick-work. 
In these alleys, the fermenting materials, or 
pipes are laid, and the whole is covered in 
with close boarding, so as to allow the beds to 
be got at without interfering with the source 
of heat. The beds must also be covered in, in 
any way most suitable, a moveable wooden 
framework being, no doubt, the best. 
LAYERING. 
Many plants, when kept in a moist atmo- 
sphere, having a tendency to throw out roots 
from their joints, the idea of making layers 
must have very early occurred to gardeners. * 
When the roots are thrown out naturally 
wherever a joint of the shoot touches the 
moist earth (as is the case with most of the 
kinds of Verbena, which only require pegging 
down to make them form new plants), layers 
differ very little from runners ; but layers, 
properly so called, are when the art of the gar- 
dener has been employed to make plants throw 
out roots when they would not have done so 
naturally. The most common method of doing 
this is to cut half through, and slit upwards, 
a shoot from a growing plant, putting a bit of 
twig or potsherd between the separated parts, 
and then to peg down the shoot, so as to bury 
the divided joint in the earth ; when the 
returning sap, being arrested in its progress to 
the main root, will accumulate at the joint, to 
which it will afford such abundance of nourish- 
ment as to induce it to throw out a mass of 
fibrous roots, and thus to convert the shoot 
bej'ond it into a new plant, which may be 
separated from the parent, and transplanted. 
The only art required in layering is to con- 
trive the most effectual means of interrupting 
the returning sap, so as to produce as great an 
accumulation of it as possible at the joint from 
which the roots are to be produced. For this 
purpose, sometimes, instead of cutting the 
branch half through, a ring of bark is removed 
below the joint, care being taken that the 
knife does not penetrate into the wood ; and 
at others a wire is twisted firmly round the 
shoot, so as to pinch in the bark ; or a knife or 
other sharp instrument is passed through the 
branch several times in different directions : 
in short, anything that wounds or injures the 
shoot, so as to throw an impediment in the 
