THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
101 
port tire quantity of land cultivated in the various 
pro facts. Should this system become universal 
throughout the State, and the reports sent up to 
the State Society annually, it would enable the 
farmer to act in the sale of li's crop with a mtlch 
greater knowledge of W'hat he wars doing ; there 
would not be this constant guessing as to the 
probable quantity of this or that product raised. 
The advantages growingoiitof Acricultural So- 
cieties, in giving rewards or premiums for the 
best domestic fabrics, have done much to pro- 
mote industry, creating a laudable competition, 
and hasolfen led to most valuable results. 
tVext to Agricultural Societies as a means of 
improving the husbandry of the country, the 
reading of agricultural papers and periodicals has 
done and is doing much. As an evidence of lire 
high value set on agricultural papers by the culti- 
vators of the soil— they are daily growing into 
their confidence. The prejudice heretofore ex- 
isting against every thing written on the subject 
of a.gricultiire, generally called book-farming, is 
rapidly giving way to a more en ightened view, 
and instead of one agricultural paper that stood 
up solitary and alone, twenty years past, as the 
friend of Agiiculture, there is now over thirty of 
these papers published, in every section of our 
wide spread country, scattering light and spread- 
ing useful knowledge and information in every 
direction. Although General Washington lived 
long before an agricultural paper was thought of 
in America, so important did he consider the pe- 
rusal of Agricultural works, that he sent to Eu- 
rope and procured the publications of the best 
writers on agriculture, and read them v/ith dili- 
gence and reidection, drawing from them such 
scientific and practical hints as he could advan- 
tageously use in improving his farm. 
The improvement of mechanic arts is equally 
important with that of the improvement of hus- 
bandry. We are indebted to the Mechanic for 
our success as farmers ; at eveiy step that we 
taite without these indispensable implements of 
husbandry, La daily use, by which we are enabled 
to cultivate the earth, what could we do ? How 
could we succeed as farmers, without the plow, 
the hoe, the axe, the hundred other implements, 
that are indispensarie to our success as farmers, 
that are furnished us by the industrious and in- 
geriious .Mechanic ? We are indebted to the Me- 
chanic for the houses we occupy, for the cloths 
\ve w'ear. Wi:hout the printing press, how would 
we be informed of the various improvements that 
are constantly going on in agriculture? What dis- 
position would we make of our surplus products, 
without the aid of the Mechanic? — without the 
steamboat and the ship, to transport our cotton 
to distant lands, and furnish us with the indispen- 
sable articles in daily use ? We should succeed 
but poorly as farmers. Hence we say that the far- 
mer and the mechanic, are twin brothers, alike 
dependent on each other for support and success. 
It is not at all wonderful that our Heavenly 
Father, should have selected a garden as the resi- 
dence of the first pair. None but those who cul- 
tivate a garden can form any just idea of the 
pleasure it affords those who spend a portion of 
their time in this delightful employment. We 
have never yet sufficiently appieciated the com- 
forts, to say nothing of the luxuries of a well- 
cultivated garden. Indeed, Horticulture is only 
an i mproved state of Agriculture. A well culti- 
vated garden, will supply half the daily demands 
of a family. In our sunny South, we may be 
supplied with vegetables and fruits all the year 
round from the garden, of some kind. I know it 
has been common with us to turn over the garden 
to some extent to the ladies, and in many in- 
stances, (he it said to their honor) they manage it 
much better than we do; for they have that pro- 
pm’ taste, so necessary to the management of a 
nice and handsome garden. And it we, in our 
travels through the country, would make it our 
business to collect wherever we go, all the rare 
and valuable vegetables, fruits and flowers, (yes, 
flowers, if you please,) and place them in the 
hands of our wives and daughters, they would 
give a good account ot them. T believe there is 
no t'me so profitably spent as that devoted to the 
preparation and cultivation of a garden. Here, 
morning, noon and night, you make your appli- 
cation fur nourishment, and if you have done 
your duty well, you do not apply in vain ; you not 
only are supplied with that which is pleasant atid 
palatable, but that which is healthy. We have 
said that the ladies have sometimes conducted 
the arrangements ot the garden ; and, so far as 
flowers are concerned, itere is her .nppropriate 
home ; here, surraunded by the blossoms she has 
cultivated with her own fair hands, she delights 
to dwell. It has been most appropriately re- 
marked by some writer, that while the seeds, ve- 
getables and fruits of the earth, aie the bounties 
of the Almighty, that flowers are his smiles. 
We wou'd recommend every farmer, and indeed 
every one, to fuliivaie a taste for Horticulture. 
Nothing tiids so much as a well conducted gar- 
den, no matter how small it may be, to make 
home a pleasant and happy place. After we have 
toiled throughout the day, how pleasant to return 
in the evening, and seat ourselves under some 
shade tree in the garden that we have planted 
with onr owm hands. Nothing is so well calcu- 
lated to soften down our nalure as a sfi oil through 
a beautiful flower garden. The man who plants 
a fruit, or a shade tree, becomes to some extent a 
public benefactor. 
A few of the friends of Agriculture, anxious 
to improve the state of husbandry in our new 
country, where but the other day, the red 
man of the forest was the only occupant, met 
in this town in 1339, and formed themselves 
into an Agricultural Society. Since the for- 
mation of an association, some of its early and 
most devoted friends have gone to that bourne 
from whence no traveller returns. Many of us 
yet live, and enjoy the pleasure of meeting to- 
gether from time to time, to consult for the good 
of the whole. That our society has accomplished 
all that its friends hoped for, we do not pretend to 
claim : that it has done some good, we are equally 
confident. All we now want, to make the Bar- 
bour county Agricultural Society, the great cen- 
tre from which shall be spread out useful and im- 
portant knowledge, that wiff do much to improve 
the farming interest of this country, is a united 
effort, on the part of its members. The farmers 
of this country have it in their power, to make it 
one vast garden ; and by a universal effort to im- 
prove the Agriculture of these United States, 
they can soon become the grainery of the world. 
CULTiVA'FlOtW OF ASFASS AGUS. 
Of all vegetables, treated as “g^rcews,” the as- 
paragus is considered by most, as standing at the 
head of the list. Comparatively few, however, 
provide themselves properly with a supply ; or 
even where they have had an abundance, it is 
not of the first quality. Perhaps a few hints on 
its culture, and on the mode of obtaining the 
finest, may be acceptable at this time. 
The difference between large and small as- 
paragus, depends very much on cultivation, a 
deep, rich soil, and plenty of room bettveen the 
plants, producing the largest growth. Some- 
thing also doubtless is to be attributed to the va- 
riety; as by a successive selection of seed from 
the ihriitiest plants, an ultimate improvement 
may be obtained. Hence, in making a bed, 
seed from those plants which are known to be 
very large, are to be preferred. If good plants, 
one or two years old, can be obtained at hand, 
the bed will ot course be accelerated one year. 
A common and a good practice in preparing 
an asparagus bed, is to trench the ground two 
spades deep, and then return the earth thus re- 
moved, mixed with alternate layers ol nearly an 
equal quantity of stable manure, until the top of 
the bed is six inches above the surface of the 
ground. But a great improvement on one part 
of this process is— after each layer of sail is 
thrown on the preceding layer of manure, to in- 
termix it very thoroughly with the manure, by 
means of a coarse iron rake, potatoe-hook, or 
other suitable tool. This thorough admixture 
ot soil and manure, though scarcely ever prac- 
tised, is of the greatest importance, as large 
lumps of pure manure and of earth, without be- 
ing finely divided and interfused, form but a 
poor inatcrial for the extension of the fine and 
delicate fibres ol the growing plants. 
The bed being ready for the reception of the 
plants from the seed bed, which should be re- 
moved with the least possible injury to the roots, 
proceed to lay oft the trenches for the rows. 
One of the greatest errors witli most cultivators 
is crowding their plants too closely together; 
they vyish, after so much labor in the preparation 
of a fine bed, to obtain the largest possible sup- 
ply from it, but defeat their own purpose by the 
slender and diminished growth resulting from 
such treatment. The nearest possible distance 
which ought ever to be admitted in an aspara- 
gus bed, is one foot apart in the row, and eigh- 
teen inches between the rows. Thus, il the 
trenched bed is four feel wide, only two rows 
can be admitted, instead of lour or five, as usu- 
ally practised. This may be seen by’^ the fol- 
lowing diagram, the dots indicating the plants, 
which are placed, not opposite, but aliernating 
with each other, which gives the more space be- 
tween them. If there are eighteen inches of 
space between the rows, then there will be fifteen 
inches Irom the rows to the edge of the bed, 
which is none too much for the proper extension 
of the roots. The trenches for the plants should 
be made six inches deep, and wide enough to ad- 
mit the roots spread out horizontally, which 
must be done with the fingers. The depth 
should be such that two or three inches of earth 
may be spread on the crowns of the plants. The 
beds may be made of any length to suit cultiva- 
tors. One a hundred and fifty leet long and lour 
feet wide will supply an abundance for a mode- 
rate sized iamily. 
After a bed is transplanted, it should remain 
uncut for two sea.sons. Cutting sooner will 
greatly injure its subsequent thriftiness. 
If it is remembered that the two chief requi- 
sites for success, are plenty of room for the 
growth of the plants, and a deep, fertile soil, no 
one need be at a loss in the cultivation ol this 
fine vegetable. Good, constant, and cleanly cul- 
ture, as e^'^ery one must know, is indispensable. 
These requisites are of vastly greater conse- 
quence than large varieties merely. Indeed, the 
fact that with good cultivation and management, 
no plants are small, and without that none are 
large, has led many intelligent persons to sup- 
pose that the difference between giant and small 
varieties is owing entirely to these circumstan- 
ces, and they are not far wrong. 
One advantage which may be derived, from 
planting the rows more distant than is usual, be- 
sides large growth, is the facility of keeping the 
ground cultivated, a light plow drawn by one 
horse being passed freely between them. 
With such distances, and the facilities af- 
forded lor horse cultivation, much finer plants 
may be had from a rich, deeply plowed soil 
only, than without them from a trenched bed 
two feet deep, though depth and distance com- 
bined are the best. — Albany Cultivai-or. 
From the Maine Farmer. 
Asparagus is now extensively cultivated in the 
Middle and Northern States, and is generally 
much admired as an esculent. But owing fo 
some imperfection in its management, it is sel- 
dom presented in our markets in that degree of 
perfection of which it is susceptible. In the 
country, it is almost invariably small, hard and 
tough, presenting but lew attractions either to 
the eye or palate. As we have been requested 
to publish an article, relative to the cultivation 
of this vegetable, we present the following from 
the Southern Agriculturalist, detailing the 
dusi perandi pursued in Spain, and which we 
believe is in most respects strictly coincident 
with the practice usually pursued by experienced 
gardeners and horlieulturalists in our own coun- 
try. 
Asparagus is a plant found naturally on the 
beach of various parts of the coast of Europe, 
where it is covered by the drifting sand, and 
watered by salt water on high tides. Sand and 
salt water occasionally may. therefore, be re- 
garded as indispensable conditions for maintain- 
ing it in health. How seldom is this thought of! 
It, however, explains in part, the excellence of 
St. Sebastian asparagus. 
It seems that ?.t the mouth of the Urumea is a 
narrow strip of land, about three feet above high- 
water mark, consisting of alluvial soil and the 
wearing away of sand stone hills, at whose foot 
