ASPARAGUS. 
35 
winter, the gardener who studies his interest will make the 
most of the spring season, and raise all he can before the 
market becomes glutted; to this end, he is recommended to 
prepare for forcing this vegetable, as soon as the coldest of 
the winter is past. ( See article on Forcing Vegetables.) 
Asparagus may be raised by sowing .he seed in the fall 
as soon as ripe, or in March and the early part of April. 
One ounce of seed will produce about a thousand plants. It 
requires some of the best ground in the garden. The seed 
may be sown in drills, ten or twelve inches asunder, and 
covered about an inch with light earth. When the plants 
are up, they will need a careful hoeing, and if well culti- 
vated, and kept free from weeds, they will be large enough 
to transplant when they are a year old. Some keep them in 
the nursery bed until they are two years old. 
A plantation of Asparagus, if the beds are properly dressed 
every year, will produce good buds for twenty years or more 
New plantations of Asparagus may be made in autumn, 
or before the buds get far advanced in spring, say in Febru- 
ary, March, or April, according to situation and circum- 
stances. The ground for the bed must not be wet, nor too 
strong or stubborn, but such as is moderately light and plia- 
ble, so that it will readily fall to pieces in digging or raking, 
and in a situation that enjoys the full rays of the sun. It 
should have a large supply of well rotted dung, three or four 
inches thick, and then be regularly trenched two spades 
deep, and the dung buried equally in each trench twelve or 
fifteen inches below the surface. When this trenching is 
done, lay two or three inches of thoroughly rotted manure 
over the whole surface, and dig the ground over again eight 
or ten inches deep, mixing this top dressing, and incorpo- 
rating it well with the earth. 
In family gardens,, it is customary to divide the ground 
thus prepared into beds, allowing four feet for every four 
rows of plants, with alleys two feet and a half wide between 
pack bed. Strain your line along the bed six inches from 
