174 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
dry ground, which should have been trenched three spits deep, with three 
good spits of well-rotted dung. When you have selected the spot, level the 
ground and proceed with setting it out for planting. Whatever the width of 
your bed is (I prefer the width used at Versailles which I will give hereafter), 
a little of the soil should be withdrawn into the alleys for scattering over the 
roots when they are planted. 
Those persons who follow Mawe and Abercrombie will, probably, be tempted 
to begin planting in March, but wait gentle reader, and do not attempt to do 
this until the end of May or the beginning of June. If you can seize on a 
gentle shower about this time, when the buds of the young plants are just 
shooting through the ground, this is the time to plant. This was first pointed 
out to me many years ago by my old and valued friend Mr. Jno. Wilmot, of 
Isleworth, he practised it, and I have done so ever since with the greatest suc¬ 
cess. Mr. Wilmot was one of the first authorities on gardening subjects, and 
there can be no gainsaying such evidence. This is well known to all my horti¬ 
cultural friends. 
With regard to plants the amateur must go to a nurseryman and buy 
seedling plants from a drill. They should be forked-up with great care not to 
bruise them. In after years he will be provided with a drill of his own, giving 
plants which will be ready upon all emergencies. 
Having taken off 2 or 3 inches of soil all over the surface of the bed, it 
should be raked level and the rows just marked out, when the planting may 
proceed. This should be done rapidly to prevent the drying action of the 
wind upon the roots. When just fixed in their places a little mould should be 
placed upon them, and the whole levelled by means of a small rake. Should a 
shower ensue the plants will be safe, but if not, dew them over with the rose 
of a waterpot and continue this if dry weather ensues. 
In the course of the following summer the plants will make a rapid and 
vigorous growth, and when they have completed their growth and the foliage 
is decaying, a good spit of rotten dung must be put upon the beds, and upon 
that one spit of soil from the alley. This being done leaves them in proper 
condition for shooting the next year; and at Versailles the finest shoots are 
cut from such beds. But the soil there is so saturated by manure that it does 
what in most other cases would not result, and, therefore, we advise letting it 
stand -three years without cutting, and then commencing to do so, when the 
shoots will be found immensely strong and vigorous. 
We may now as w r ell state that the Versailles beds are made 3 feet 6 inches 
wide, with alleys a yard wide, and upon each bed is planted two rows of As¬ 
paragus, 1 foot plant from plant. Such beds are generally used here in the 
second season by filling up the alleys with hot dung, and placing on the beds 
frames made of old ship-timber of small size which are covered by rye-straw 
mats. The Asparagus thus produced is truly splendid. 
But of all the sights which I ever witnessed, I have never seen it anywhere 
else, was that in the shop window of M. Jorets, the great epicurean salesman 
of Paris. The date of it was about the 20th of October, and it consisted of a 
box of beautiful Asparagus 20 inches long, half of the length a most lovely 
green colour, the other a most delicate white. It surpassed in beauty any I 
have ever seen from the open ground. The production of this vegetable in 
such perfection seemed to me to be truly wonderful at a season in which the 
old roots had scarcely lost their foliage and gone to rest. 
I fancy that there are few people who surpass our English gardeners as 
general cultivators. But in France they make the production of various things 
a sjKcialite, and hence arises their superiority. Thus in England we find but 
few first-rate nurserymen who cultivate more than one or two classes of plants 
