that it would not try, but so firmly was the superstition rooted in my 
race that I wasn't going to take any chances. 
And today, without pages of argument to combat a superstition 
as old as asparagus itself, we are told that a deep plowing, preferably 
in the fall, is all that is necessary for the making of an asparagus bed ! 
It is what you put on the bed, not what you put under it, that matters! 
And it is not during the three-year period that it is estabUshing itself 
that it needs the tons of manure we used to put in the bottom of the 
bed, but when we begin to cut it, and so make heavy demands on the 
vitaUty of the plant, that it needs the fertilizing. Like us, it wants 
what it wants when it wants it! The most important time for the fer- 
tilizing of the plants is the last four weeks of the cutting, and the four 
weeks after cutting is stopped. It is then, and not in September and 
October, as we used to think, that the crowns and buds for the next 
year are made; and the plants are nearly dormant in the fall, so that 
any fertilizer applied in the fall will only benefit the crop of the second 
season later, not the crop of the following spring. Salt, which was an 
article of faith in the fertiUzing of the asparagus beds of my childhood, 
is not even mentioned by four of my authorities, and by the others is 
mentioned only to be dismissed as useless. It does no harm, is the 
best that can be said for it. Asparagus is native to the salt marshes 
along the seacoast of southern Europe, as well as on the hills of Greece, 
and, strangely enough, crosses the whole continent of Europe, and is 
occasionally found wild in England. What to me is the most startling 
departure in the new culture of asparagus I have saved for the last. 
It is the depth at which it should be planted, and the fact that the 
crowns must be near the surface in winter, that they may benefit from 
the action of the frost, and that they may receive the greatest amount 
of spring sunshine. Of the books I have consulted, and the authorities 
to whom they refer, the majority give 3 inches as the proper depth at 
which to keep the crowns. Two give 2 inches, and only where the soil 
is extremely light sand do any advise deeper planting. When the warm 
spring sun has started the crowns, the plants should be covered with 
some light, loose soil into which the sun's warmth can easily penetrate, 
and that will offer no discouraging resistance to the sprouts. The 
covering should be not less than 4 inches deep, and not more than 12, 
depending on the kind and color of asparagus you prefer. The more 
well rotted manure you can use for this covering the better for the 
bed. When the matured stalks are cut down in the fall, all covering 
above the crown in excess of the desired 3 inches should be raked off 
the beds, and left to one side, to be used in the spring to cover the 
plants. Vilmorin suggests that about 2 feet of the old stalks be left 
standing in the beds to mark the crowns, so that one niay know where 
to look for signs of Ufe in the early spring, and that one may know 
where to hill up the plants if one wants especially white stalks. Do not 
21 
