boards and filled the enclosure with thoroughly rotted manure to a 
depth of 12 inches. He cut very good stalks during a long period, but 
told me that where he had more room he would plant at least twice as 
far apart, as the life of a closely planted bed was short, and the cost 
in fertihzer very great. Leboeuf says: "No advantage is gained by 
close planting, as it has been proved by Goschke and Binz in widely 
separated districts in Germany, and by me in France, that the weight 
of the crop cut is the same, if fertilization and cultivation are the same, 
whether the plants are set close or far apart. The greatest difference 
exists, however, in the size of the stalks and the longevity of the bed. 
It is reasonable to expect to cut stalks of the first quality for twenty 
years from a bed where the plants are set from 4 to 5 feet apart, closer 
planting quickly degenerates the plants, and in ten years at most 
they have reverted to their original size of goose-quills." 
The bulletin of the Department of Agriculture on Asparagus 
Culture, Bulletin No. 61, is to be had for the asking, and contains 
definite and valuable information on every phase of asparagus grow- 
ing. I am only trying to emphasize a point here and there, for I find 
that any one so thoroughly famihar with his subject that he can write 
so informing a bulletin is apt to forget that to many of us who have 
jogged along in the old way some of his commonplaces are starthng 
indeed, and require much emphasis to penetrate through the fog of 
tradition, superstition and ignorance in which I, for one, planted my 
first asparagus bed. Many years ago there was a most charming 
story, published, I think, in Harpers, of the planting of an asparagus 
bed near Baltimore. The roots were brought from France by some 
intrepid Colonial, and an amusing negro love-story was woven into 
the making of the bed. I remember the description of the great 
excavation, and the lining of the sides and bottom with oyster-shells, 
carefully laid one over the other, "For," said the diary around which 
the story was written, "it is a well-known fact that these strange 
plants are native to our antipodes, and if it is possible for them to do 
so, will return to their home rather than grow for us." To prevent so 
extraordinary a migration, the mistress of this early American garden 
insisted that her slave lay shell over shell so that not the smallest 
loophole be left for escape. She found great difficulty in impressing 
the slave with the necessity for such accurate matching of the shells, 
until, finding the sun warm, she sent for her young maid to fan her. 
So startling an efifect did the maid's coming have on the energy dis- 
played by the man, that she says, "Though a cool breeze sprang up, 
I continued to have her ply her fan until the shells were all laid." 
Alas, having no slave and no maid to fan me, with my own hands I 
carefully fitted, over the bottom of the first bed I made, broken brick, 
flower-pots, and so forth, and I defy any asparagus ever to get back 
to its native heath through the bottom of that bed ! Perhaps I knew 
20 
