May 27, 1386. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
415 
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COMING EVENTS 
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Royal Society at 4.S0 p m. Linnean Society at 8 P M. 
Quekett Club at 8 p.m. 
5th Sunday after Easter. 
ASPARAGUS. 
CY is not this most delicious and highly 
esteemed spring vegetable more extensively 
grown in this country ? The demand for it 
in towns is so great that tons of bundles have 
to be imported from France to meet it. This 
French supply is highly acceptable no doubt 
to consumers in Britain, and the early 
consignments cannot be regarded as preju¬ 
dicing British growers; but, on the con- 
trary, the early dishes stimulate the taste for more, and 
would undoubtedly lead to a greater consumption of home¬ 
grown Asparagus if it were larger than is usually seen. It 
is a mistake to suppose that French Asparagus is different 
in variety from English. It is larger because it is grown 
better, and the stems are white because they have been 
earthed up. They can be grown as large in Great Britain 
as anywhere else with good culture, and be white or green at 
the will of the cultivator. In a few English gardens 
Asparagus is produced equal to the French-grown bundles, 
but as a rule the case is different, and it is a little humiliating 
to have to admit that during what may be termed the 
English Asparagus season French consignments compete 
successfully with home-grown produce in British markets ; 
in fact, so long as the foreign produce is imported it meets 
with a ready sale, because it is on the whole finer than that 
grown at home. 
Asparagus is very ill treated in hundreds of British 
gardens. The method of culture is wrong, and the cutting 
is too severe and too long-continued; hence the plants are 
weakened. The roots are often sodden with wet when 
they ought to be drier, and dry when they ought to be moist; 
and the plants are fed at the wrong time—namely, in the 
winter when resting, instead of in the summer when working. 
Salting and manuring Asparagus beds in late autumn often 
makes the ground like a puddle in the winter, and it is not 
at all unusual to find the growths in summer drooping from 
drought. That is not the way to get fine Asparagus. 
Except in very wet or low-lying districts, where the water 
table is within 2 feet from the surface, Asparagus is better 
grown on the level than on raised beds. A very strong 
growth in summer is the great desideratum. Secure this, 
and fine heads will be certain to follow in the spring. A 
strong summer growth cannot be supported without moisture 
and manure, and the latter to be immediately available must 
be soluble. Instead, then, of piling rich solid manure over the 
crowns of the plants in the winter, liquid manure should be 
given in the spring and summer, mulching the surface after 
May to keep in the moisture. That is the way to get strong 
growth, and there is no other way in which it can be secured 
so well; and it is very certain that weak pale green “ grass ” 
in the summer can only produce small pipe-stem-like growths 
for cutting in spring. As a top-dressing for Asparagus in the 
summer a mixture of equal parts of superphosphate of lime 
and nitrate of soda, is excellent applied at the rate of 2 ozs. 
to each square yard and washed down to the roots. Salt 
No. 309. —Vol. XII., Third Series. 
may and should be given just in sufficient quantity to pre¬ 
vent the growth of weeds, for it is obviously useless making 
land rich to be made poor again by those robbers, and that 
is just what ocours in the case of numbers of Asparagus beds 
in this country. 
There are hundreds of acres of land, especially near the 
coast, light in texture, rich in vegetable matter, moist 
without being swamped, in which first-class Asparagus might 
be grown with profit to the cultivators if they adopted a 
sound and generous system of management; and if a great 
deal more were produced at home and a little less from 
abroad it would be no worse for British cultivators and con¬ 
sumers. Very good plants can be grown 18 inches apart in 
rows 3 feet asunder if they are well fed, summer feeding 
being the most important of all points in growing this 
favourite vegetable in the highest state of excellence.— An 
Old Grower. 
This delicious vegetable does not require half the expense 
often incurred. These are words I have repeatedly seen as an 
advertisement in the Journal, and I am very much inclined 
to think there is a great deal of truth in them. 
Now, as I have been cutting some capital heads from beds 
twenty years old, and this being the height of the Asparagus 
season, I think perhaps a few remarks on our system of 
management may not be out of place. In every garden 
where I have lived jit was always the custom to give the 
Asparagus beds a heavy dressing of stable manure some time 
during the winter, and doubtless there are hundreds of 
gardens where this plan is carried out, but that large weighty 
produce can be obtained without the aid of stable manure is 
certain. Now, in the garden here we have no horse or cow 
manure, so we have to find substitutes, and these we have in 
earth-closet manure and house sewage. 
In the autumn when leaves are plentiful we collect a 
large heap of these, and then get a quantity of manure from 
the earth closet (of which we always have a stock under 
cover), and thoroughly mix with the leaves, then the surface 
soil is thrown from the beds into the alleys, and a good 
dressing of the above mixture is put on as soon as possible. 
We always find it best to scatter a coating of soil over the 
top, as it keeps the leaves from being blown about; this forms 
the winter covering, but in addition to this we give the beds 
thorough drenchings of liquid manure from the sewage 
tank, not in the winter when the roots are inactive and the 
ground sodden, but now, and at intervals all through the 
summer when fresh roots and crowns are fast forming ; this 
supplies them with rich food at a time when most needed. 
That the above treatment will produce good results is 
beyond all question, for we have Asparagus rising out of the 
ground as large as a fair-sized walking-stick, and the flavour 
is excellent.—F. H. W. 
[It is very rarely we see finer heads of Asparagus than 
examples we have received from our correspondent. They 
are a credit to him, and an abundant supply of similar pro¬ 
duce is coveted both in private gardens and public markets. 
It is observable that both our correspondents lay stress on 
supporting Asparagus during the growing season. They 
are unquestionably right in their advocacy of supplying the 
plants with liquid manure from the present time onwards. 
The practice of covering Asparagus beds thickly with manure 
in the autumn, raking most of it off again in the spring, then 
allowing weeds to luxuriate in the summer where it yet 
lingers, ought to cease. We never “ weed ” our Asparagus 
beds, but prevent the necessity by occasional applications of 
salt, and the manure we apply is appropriated by the crop 
for which it is intended.] 
COLUMBINES. 
Among the many showy and useful flowers for adorning our 
gardens in early summer the Columbines should always be found. 
They possess an elegance which only needs to be seen to be fully 
No. 1965.— Vol. LXXIY., Old Series, 
