Q2 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
inches apart and four inches in the row, and 
shade, as directed for the seed-bed. The 
roots should be kept from the atmosphere as 
much as possible in transplanting. 'With good 
seed, a satisfactory success will be realized. 
This method will apply with equal success in 
propagating any variety of hardy evergreens. 
The Early Wyman Cabbage. 
The market of each large city presents pe- 
culiar features not to be found elsewhere. In 
New York an article will sell if it looks well, no 
matter if ils quality is inferior to that which is 
less showy in appearance. In Boston, people 
are more particular; they take the pains to learn 
the names and characters of the best varieties 
of fruit and vegetables, and are governed more 
by quality than by external appearance. The 
gardeners who supply that market have obtain- 
ed, by careful selection, several varieties or sub- 
varieties which have a local popularity, and are 
worthy the attention of growers elsewhere. Bos- 
ton Market Cauliflower, Boston Market Celery 
and Boston Market Tomato are all among the 
best, if not the very best, of their kinds. The 
popular early cabbage in the Boston market is 
the Early Wyman — which, for a wonder, is not 
called "Boston Market," The variety origin- 
ated with Mr. John "Wyman, of Arlington, Mass., 
and the seed was introduced by Washburn & 
Co., of Boston. The engraving on page SI gives 
the shape of the head. Specimens furnished us 
last spring by Messrs. B. K. Bliss & Son were 
of large size, solid for an early variety, and very 
crisp and tender. It is said to bring a higher 
price in market than any other variety. 
Tree Labels. 
A tree label that will not require too much 
trouble to make it, and that will remain legible 
for a series of years, has long been a desidera- 
tum among fruit-growers. It may be that this 
Fig. 1. — WRITTEN ZINC LABELS. 
is supplied by the simple zinc label written with 
a common black-lead pencil. Several gentle- 
men inform 113 that they have had labels 
of this kind remain legible for ten or more 
years, and that though the writing makes but 
little show when recently done, in time it be- 
comes more distinct. We suppose that the sur- 
face of the zinc just under the writing is pro- 
tested by the black-lead or plumbago of the 
,/ 
Fig 
-PUNCHED ZINC LABELS. 
pencil, and that while the rest of the surface is 
oxidized by the action of the weather this re- 
mains intact ; or it may be that the carbon — 
the best black-lead is nearly pure carbon — 
unites iu some way with the zinc. The only 
objection we see to these labels is the ease with 
which they may be effaced when the writing is 
fresh, but a few weeks' exposure fixes it. The 
Gardeners' Monthly gives a convenient form 
for the label, which is shown in the engraving. 
The zinc is cut iu the form of an elongated 
triangle, the point of which, when wrapped 
around a twig, will hold the label, and at 
the same time expand as the tree increases in 
size. Mr. O. D. Case sends us a specimen of 
the labels he has found to be most serviceable. 
He uses a tag of zinc, upon which he marks a 
number, and then with an awl punches holes 
through the zinc, following the outline of the 
number, as in the figure ; the roughness raised 
by the punching is filed off. A number of this 
kind has the advantage that it can be buried in 
the ground with cuttings and cions without 
risk of being obliterated, but it of course re- 
quires that a record of the numbers and the 
names they represent should be carefully kept. 
Asparagus Culture— The " Colossal." 
BY PETER HENDERSON, BERGEN CITY, N. J. 
When, in 1867, 1 wrote "Gardening for Profit," 
I then gave it as my belief that, at that time, 
we had only one variety of asparagus ; and that 
all the so-called "Giant" and "Mammoth" va- 
rieties were merely the results of superior soil or 
cultivation, which on being propagated by seeds 
or otherwise and placed in ordinary conditions 
of culture, would fall back to their original or 
normal condition ; in short, that the species had 
never " broke," as we technically term it. 
At least half a dozen different times during 
the past twenty-five years had various parties 
claimed to bo possessors of varieties of aspara- 
gus of increased size and productiveness; these, 
when fairly tested, we found to be nothing bet- 
ter, nothing different, from what we had been 
cultivating. This experience necessarily made 
most of us skeptical to the claims of Conover's 
"Colossal," and when the question was asked 
me, as it was done some hundreds of times last 
season, I invariably replied that all past experi- 
ence in this matter led me to believe that it was 
no different from the ordinary sort, and for that 
reason we had refused to offer the seed for sale 
until satisfied with full proof of the claim. 
I had had several conversations with Mr. 
Conover on the subject, and although I had no 
doubt that he honestly believed all he repre- 
sented, still thought him mistaken, until one clay 
in May he walked into our store with two 
bunches of asparagus so entirely different in 
color, texture and size that left me no longer 
room to doubt, but that these were different va- 
rieties. This was one point gained for Mr. 
Conover and one lost for me, which resulted in 
an arrangement with him to go over to the 
farm of Abraham Van Siclen, of Jamaica, Long 
Island, and there to inspect an acre of the 
Oyster Bay Asparagus (the ordinary kind), and 
an acre of his " Colossal," which Mr. Van Siclen 
had planted in the spring 1868, each then one 
3'ear old from seed. A thorough inspection of 
the roots of each lot proved that they were of 
the same age. The soil was next examined, 
and found to be as near the same as it could 
well be, yet these two beds of asparagus showed 
a difference that left me no longer a shadow of 
a doubt of their being entirely distinct varieties. 
In the old variety we found no shoot thicker 
than one inch in diameter and averaging twenty 
shoots to a hill, while in the Colossal many 
shoots were found an inch and a half iu diam- 
eter and averaging thirty-five shoots to a hill — 
an enormous growth when it is remembered the 
plant was only three years from the seed. 
Mr. Van Siclen is well known as one of our 
best Long Island market gardeners, who has 
made the growing of asparagus a specialty for 
twenty years, and who has probably in that 
time sold more asparagus in the markets of New 
York than any other man. He was exceeding- 
ly enthusiastic in praise of this variety, believ- 
MANNEK OP PLANTING ASPARAGUS. 
ing that at a low estimate it would yield a 
profit of at least one-third greater than the 
ordinary sort, under the same conditions, be- 
sides coming to maturity two years sooner. 
Mr. Van Siclen's method of growing aspara- 
gus is simple, and iu some respects new to me. 
To begin, he sows his seeds in his rich sandy 
loam, in April, in rows one foot apart and two 
inches in depth, dropping the seed so that they 
may be distributed evenly about half an inch 
apart ; the plants are cultivated by hoeing be- 
tween the rows and keeping them clear of 
weeds by hand picking. In the spring follow- 
ing he sets his plants (now one year old, which 
in his experience, is preferable to two years 
old). His mode of planting is somewhat differ- 
ent from the usual practice, but for having a 
lasting asparagus bed — one that will be as good 
at the end of twenty years as it is at eight — it is 
certainly the best. It differs in putting the 
plants much wider apart than usual, his plants 
standing six feet between the rows and four feet 
between the plants, making less than two thou- 
sand plants to an acre. In preparing the land 
to receive the plants, he merely plows to the 
depth of a foot or so with the ordinary plow; 
his soft, sandy subsoil rendering the use of the 
subsoil plow unnecessary, but in soils less fa- 
vored, the use of the subsoil plow would bo 
of decided advantage. In preparing to plant, 
he turns out a furrow with a double mould- 
board plow, so that at its deepest part it is 
nearly 13 inches deep; a good shovelful of 
thoroughly rotted manure is then placed in the 
furrow, at distances of four feet, so spread that 
it will make a layer of three inches or so; an 
inch or two of soil is then thrown on the top 
of the manure and the asparagus planted as 
shown in the engraving, and so deep that its 
crown is seven or eight inches under the surface 
level. The plant is now only partially covered 
up with the soil, say two or three inches, until 
it starts to grow, when the furrows are thrown 
in by the plow so that the whole surface is 
leveled, which places the crown of the aspara- 
gus some seven or eight inches under the sur- 
face. This would be, perhaps, two inches too 
deep in heavy soils, but in the light, soft soil 
near Jamaica it answers well. The first and 
second seasons after planting, no asparagus is 
cut for market, as it weakens the crop, but in 
the third year a partial crop is taken, although 
Mr. Van Siclen does not consider his beds to be 
at their best until the sixth or seventh year. 
Their productiveness may be continued for 30 
years by his wide system of planting, recourse 
being had to manuring freely annually, by dig- 
ging or plowing it in around the roots before 
the crop has started to grow, or after it is cut. 
The average clear profit annually, taking the 
wholesale price of 25c. per bunch, Mr. Van 
Siclen estimates to be for his section (which is 
