CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
383 
none. It is notorious that many persons who 
hold head places are only reading and not 
■working gardeners, that they have good work- 
ing men under them, who find all the practi- 
cal knowledge, while the head man is in- 
debted to them for the fine condition of the 
establishment and the liberal supply of pro- 
ductions. This could not be if the employer 
was a gardener also, for he would not be long 
in discovering the difference between the man 
who had the credit without the brains, and he 
who had to find the brains without having the 
credit. Therefore would we have a book of 
instruction used at every school, and the 
rising generation well grounded in all that 
could be learned by reading, that each one 
may be able in future times to know when his 
garden is well managed and, if necessary, to 
manage it himself. 
CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS, 
AND ORIGINAL NOTES, CONNECTED TYITH HORTICULTURE. 
The Vienna mode of growing Aspa- 
ragus. — A correspondent of the Gardeners' 
Chronicle states the following to be the mode 
in which the huge Vienna Asparagus — said 
to be the best in the world — is grown. The 
"covering of clay" which is mentioned ap- 
pears to be an earthenware hollow cylinder, 
open at one end, and at the other merely pierced 
with a hole to admit light : — The situation of 
the beds should be a sunny one, and dry. 
They should be planted with two rows of 
Asparagus, if three and a half feet broad, and 
in three rows, if five feet broad ; between each 
bed there should be a space of three feet, in 
order that the beds may not be trod upon by 
the gardener when cutting, or cleaning, or 
manuring. The beds should be about three 
to three and a half feet deep, and the earth 
well screened through a sieve. They should 
be thus filled early in April : — 1. One foot 
deep fir-leaves and earth, taken from under 
the trees, or else with wood shavings, rotten 
wood, or other substance which will allow 
the water to drain through. And this is to 
be laid down lightly, not pressed or trodden 
down. 2. Six inches of clean earth passed 
through a sieve. 3. Sis inches of ma- 
nure. 4. Six inches of good earth. 5. Six 
inches of manure. 6. Six inches of fine good 
earth. The Asparagus must then be planted 
at distances of two feet upon hotbeds of three 
inches high, and twelve inches in circum- 
ference, formed in the shape of an inverted 
plate upon the ground, so that the roots may 
spread all around. These roots are then to 
be covered with a little more hotbed earth, 
and the whole bed to be covered with rich 
earth to a good inch above the tops of the 
roots, or a foot above the level of the garden; 
this is necessary, as the beds always sink very 
much for the first year or two. After being 
planted, the beds should be gently watered, 
and as soon as the shoots attain the height of 
six inches they should have a covering of 
clay, with a hole at the top of each, big enough 
to admit of a straw, and the air should be 
allowed to pass through from underneath. 
Asparagus should be planted in April, accord- 
ing to the weather, and will, when thus 
planted, produce for twenty years conse- 
cutively, and increase in quantity every year 
as the roots spread. 
Manure-water for Pot Plants. — Many 
— indeed most — plants grown in pots may, at 
particular periods of the growth, be advan- 
tageously treated with liquid manure ; these 
periods ai*e chiefly during the time of making 
vigorous growth, and of blooming. Inex- 
perienced persons, however, are liable to do 
material injury from using it too strong or too 
often ; or they fall into the other extreme, and 
derive no benefit from the application. A very 
useful liquid manure for pot plants may be 
made by putting the following ingredients into 
a hogshead of rain water : — two pecks of sheep 
or deer dung, one peck of soot, and two quarts 
of Potter's guano ; these ingredients are first 
to be well mixed up to the consistence of paste, 
with boiling water, and then mixed with cold 
water. Stir the mixture frequently for a day 
or two, and then throw in a quart of quick 
lime ; when the liquid has become clear it is 
fit for use. For all strong growing plants this 
may be used daily, or every other day — ap- 
plying it diluted with about one-third of clear 
water. For heaths, and similar delicate-rooted 
plants, and even for orchids, it will prove 
beneficial, but to these should not be given 
oftener than one a week. As before observed, 
it is only to be used — at least by the inex- 
perienced — during the periods of growth and 
blooming. 
Training Climbing Plants. — It is not 
well to interfere too constantly with the grow- 
ing shoots of climbers, nor to restrain them 
too much. Of course, such as would naturally 
grow into an entangled and inseparable mass, 
must be looked to, so far as to prevent this 
from being the case ; but otherwise this class 
of plants enjoy their liberty. Depend on it, 
these scramblers of the jungle do not like too 
much control from the hand of man. This 
must not, however, be carried to the other ex- 
treme, and so end in disorder and confusion, 
but rather try and reconcile the two — liberty 
of growth on the one hand, order and system 
on the other. 
Plant-potting. — Potting is in no other- 
wise different from planting in the open ground 
than that it compels plants to grow in a con- 
fined space. Therefore, whatever conditions 
are favourable or unfavourable to plants in 
