ing seed and liberal wages for all work from 
plowing until the crop goes to market, I And 
to be about 64.50. F. R. 
Cherokee Co., Kansas. 
-♦ • «- 
Raising Flax in Kansas. 
I have raised flax to some extent ever since 
its first introduction into this count}' and, I 
think it yields best on high, prairie soils. I 
plow either in Fall or Spring and harrow till 
the ground is meilow and level. 1 sow broad¬ 
cast half a bushel of seed per acre and harrow 
once. When most of the pods are brown I 
harvest with a Champion Reaper; let it lie on 
the ground eight or ten days and it is ready 
for thrashing. The yield has been about ten 
bushels per acre on old ground and eight bush¬ 
els on new ground. It is worth from 80 cents 
to 81 per bushel. The straw is worth about 
the same as wheat straw for feed. The ex¬ 
pense per aero for raising flax has been, in my 
experience, from 88 to $4. j. w. m. 
Coleviltc, Kansas. 
» PETER B. MEAD. 
The asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) is one 
of the oldest inmates of the garden, and was 
quite as much esteemed several hundred years 
before tho Christian era as it is to-day. Its 
cultivation, I am inclined to think, has come 
down to us through the long line of ages, 
somewhat envelox>ed in mystery and supersti¬ 
tion. 
The directions sometimes given for making 
an asparagus lied are so elaborate, laborious 
and expensive, and some of them so entirely 
without auy good reason in the nature of tho 
plant, that I shall make no further allusion to 
them, hut confine myself to the simpler meth¬ 
ods now pursued in the garden and in the field. 
So far from an asparagus bed being an expen¬ 
sive luxury, I shall show in the end that no 
man is so poor that he may not have one, pro¬ 
vided he has a small plot of ground on which 
to make it. At present I shall confine myself 
to the garden. 
The Soil. —It is undoubtedly true that a 
light loam or sandy soil is the best for our 
plant, nud a heavy clay about the worst 
in its natural condition. The soil should bo 
free from standing water. There are few 
homes where such a spot cannot be found. 
The best asparagus sent to the New York 
market is chiefly grown on light sandy soils 
contiguous to tho seashore, and in such places 
the plant is often found growing wild. A 
heavy loam will be much improved by the ad¬ 
dition of a liberal quantity of sand. 
Manures or Fertilizers. —In the prepar¬ 
ation of the bed 1 confine myself exclusively 
to old, thoroughly rotted barn-yard manure, 
which has not had its chief gooduess washed 
out by rains. Special or artificial fertilizers 
will find their proper place on the surface as 
top-dressings when needed, though even then 
I profer the bara-yard manure. 
Preparation ok the Soil. —This is done 
by trenching with the spade, which is a rather 
laborious operation, and consists, as usually 
done, iu reversing tho soil or placing the good 
soil at the bottom and the poor soil on the top, 
mixing in the manure as the operation pro¬ 
ceeds. Tho following method, however, in¬ 
volves less than half the labor, and I have 
found it to be quite as good, and in some 
cases better. First, mark out the size of the 
bed, and then mark uflf a piece about three feet 
wide, mid from this piece remove all the top 
soil to the depth of the spade, or about one 
foot. Next cover this open space or trench 
with from four to six inches of munure (ac¬ 
cording to your supply), and dig it in the sub¬ 
soil, mixing the subsoil and the manure well 
together, if you can get some leaf mold, 
two or three inches of this dug in with the 
manure will be a valuable addition. 
Tho next operation will be to spread from 
four to six inches of manure over the whole 
of the bed that has not yet been disturbed. 
Then mark oil' another piece three feet wide, 
and throw the top soil, to the depth of a foot, 
into the open trench mixing in the manure 
while doing so. There is now another open 
trench three foot wide, which must be covered 
with manure and spaded up as before directed. 
These operations must be repeated until the 
whole bed has been trenched, tho lust open 
trench being filled with the top soil that was 
dug out of the first trench. Tho surface soil, 
it will be seen, still remains ou the surface, 
while t he subsoil has been stirred and enriched 
with manure. This preparation 1 have found 
to produce quite as good results as when the 
soil h;is been trenched to the depth of three or 
four feet,, with the subsoil brought to the sur¬ 
face, as is commonly recommended; and in 
some soils I think a foot-and-a-half quite 
enough. A little leveling and a thorough 
raking will leave the bed in good condition 
for the reception of the plants. 
Plants and Planting.— There is a differ¬ 
ence of opinion as to the age of the plants to 
be used. I have settled down to the convic¬ 
tion that there is nothing better than well- 
grown plants one year old. They are certain¬ 
ly less troublesome to handle than those that 
are older and may be cut quite as soon. There 
are two methods of planting more or less 
commonly practiced. One consists in open¬ 
ing a trench about one foot wide and six 
inches deep, and spreading out the roots on 
the bottom in a natural manner; the other 
consists in cuttiug an edge perpendicularly 
along the line, and laying the roots along this 
edge somewhat fan-fashion, dividing the roots 
pretty equally on each side of the crown. In. 
either case the crowns should be placed about 
six inches beneath the surface. The first is 
the better method though involving a little 
more labor. The trench in either case should 
be only half-filled up till the plants have got 
well above ground, when the trench may' be 
filled up level. 
Distance at wHien to Plant. —On this 
point opinions and practices have undergone 
a considerable change during the past ten 
years or so, the tendency being to increase the 
distance, and, perhaps, to run into an ex¬ 
treme, to the waste of land. All are pretty 
well agreed, however, that the rows should be 
from three to four feet apart in field culture, 
the latter distance finding much favor in 
sandy soils. Wide planting in the field has 
manifest advantages in the use of labor-saving 
implements, and the plants yield better and 
live longer than when huddled together in the 
old way. In the garden, however, I prefer 
closer planting, say two feet apart for the 
rows and a foot-and-a-half between the plants 
in the rows as the minimum distance. For 
large-growing kinds, like Conover’s Colossal, 
I would increase these distances six inches 
and a foot. The planting may be done in the 
Fall or iu the Spring, and it is well to prepare 
the beds in the Fall even if the planting should 
not be done until Spring. 
For field culture the ground is generally 
prepared by using the subsoil plow, the aim 
being thorough and deep preparation and a 
liberal use of manure. 
Mailing Beds from Seed. —1 have already 
reached the limits assigued me, but I must, 
nevertheless, add a few words about my ex¬ 
perience in making asparagus beds from seeds, 
which to some will probably be tho most use¬ 
ful part of this article. 1 will do it with all 
possible brevity. I have really never had bet¬ 
ter beds than those made by sowing the seeds 
where the plants are to remain, with a gain of 
a year at least in the time of cutting, besides 
the saving of much labor. The bed being pre¬ 
pared as above directed, stretch a line and 
draw a drill six inches deep, throwing the 
earth on each side like the furrow made by a 
double mold-board plow. This drill can easily 
be made with a spade, the soil being drawn or 
pushed to e ther side till the required depth 
has been reached. The drill should be six 
inches deep measuring from the level surface 
of the ground, and not from the top of the soil 
thrown out iu making the drill, as is common¬ 
ly done in making drills. Sow the seed ia this 
drill, and cover two inches deep. When the 
plants are about three inches high, thin them 
out to the proper distance apart, and gradual¬ 
ly fill up the drill as the plants increase in 
growth. 
This is a simple way of making a bed, and 
the second year the growth of the plants will 
surprise you. If you have choice seed, and 
not much of it, look it over carefully, reject 
all that are bad, and then put two or three to¬ 
gether at intervals Of 18 inches or two feet, or 
where a plant is to remain, all but one being 
pulled up when two or three inches high. If 
the Mil-plus plants will not come up without 
disturbing the roots of the one that is to re¬ 
main ias is often the case), they should be cut 
out. Iu this way a small quantity of seed 
may be made to go over a large bed. 
If your bed has not been prepared, and you 
wish to sow tho seed for future use, enrich a 
piece of ground, draw drills a foot apart and 
two inches deep, sow and cover the seed, keep 
the bed clean, mid transplant to a prepared 
bed when the plants are a year old. The seed 
should be sown as early as possible in the 
Spring. Kite sowings sometimes fail. Begin 
weeding as soon as the plants can be seen. 
Tho space between the rows of young plants 
iu a new bed of asparagus may be utilized by 
growing a crop of lettuce, radishes, beets or 
other low-growing plants; but it is not wise to 
continue this beyond the first year, except for 
the radish and lettuce. These plants must 
be kept well away from the asparagus, and the 
bed kept entirely free from weeds. A good 
deal of the future success of tho bod will de¬ 
pend upon a free, uninterrupted growth dim¬ 
ing the first year. 
I hope I have simplified somewhat the man¬ 
ner of making an asparagus bed. Its future 
care and treatment, however briefly told, 
would require space enough for another arti¬ 
cle, which I may give if it should be deemed 
necessary. [Please.— Eds.] 
♦ « » 
Is it to be a real outgrowth of a genuine 
love and taste for flowers in their simple and 
natural beauty, or only a craze or a passing 
fashion ? Be that as it may, another “ weed ” 
has found a place in the ladies' corsage. The 
Golden Rod (Solidago) has been freely used 
by ladies during the past Bummer and Au¬ 
tumn for belt and corsage adornment, and I 
am bound to say that I have seldom seen them 
use any flower in a more graceful and becom¬ 
ing manner, especially when the complexion 
and the dress harmonized with the color of 
the flower. I remember one case where I 
thought the arrangement simply exquisite, 
being influenced, it may be, by the fuct that 
the young lady was very beautiful and dressed 
with rare good taste. Iam trying to think 
how far it will bo wise to encourage this sort 
of thing with the ultimate view of making 
some kinds of weeds rare. The thought is 
rather perplexing. 
The Fair of the American Institute is now 
(Oct. 8) under way. On September 3d the 
first weekly floral exhibition was held. The 
terrible drought marred it greatly, and the 
horticultural exhibits generally were not up 
to the usual standard; but there were two 
objects of such rare excellence and so rarely 
seen in good form as to make up for many 
shortcomings. These two objects were a rent 
dinner-table design and a funeral dpsign. The 
New York florists make up some very beauti¬ 
ful things, ami their mechanical execution is 
worthy of all praise; but their conceptions of 
what a dinner-table design should be are 
greatly at fault. Mr. Davidson, two or three 
years ago, at an exhibition of the New York 
Horticultural Society, presented a dinner- 
table set conceived in the best taste; and now 
Miss Lizzie Bennett, of Brooklyn, exhibits at 
the American Institute a center-piece for the 
dinner-table conceived with rare good taste 
and finished up with those light and graceful 
touches wluch it is generally supposed only a 
woman's hand can give. It was just what a 
dinner-table piece should lie, light, airy and 
very graceful, and that is all that ueed be 
saiil. In dining out nothing can be more 
provoking than to be seated opposite a lovely 
and entertaining woman and be divided from 
her by a great, solid mass of flowers that you 
cannot see through, or over, or around; and 
it is almost as bad to have a great mass of 
flowers sprawling all over the table, sadly in¬ 
terfering with nil comfort and pleasure in 
eating. 
It so happened that the funeral design 
alluded to above was also from Miss Bennett. 
This design was the very perfection of simple 
beauty, being neither more nor less than a 
cross with diagonal arms, camellia leaves, and 
the white, fragrant flowers of Eueharis 
Amazoniea; but a pure taste had given to 
these few and simple things such a grand ex¬ 
pression of grace and fitness as to make one 
feel that it was altogether such an offering as 
the loved living might place on the grave of 
the loved dead without offense to God or man. 
It was so different from the great, clumsy, 
uncouth, expressionless objects that too often 
mock tho solemnity of the grave, that it is 
worth while to stop a moment to notice it. 
It was the best funeral design I have ever 
seen. A score or two of men might take the 
same material and copy the design, and yet 
fail to fully produce the same effects. The 
hanging of the festoons of the Eueharis would 
be their weak point, while it was Miss Bennett's 
stroug one. I hope they will try, however. 
I have noticed with pleasure that the Shel¬ 
don Pear has been growing in favor with the 
public for several years past. This Fall it 
has been abundant in tho New York market, 
and has sold well. It is one of our best pears, 
and deserves all the favor it promises to 
receive. Every year the pear is becoming a 
more popular fruit. 
I am indebted to my old friend Mr. Wilder 
for an early copy of his address before the 
late meeting of the American Pomological 
Society. It is evident that age has not abated 
one jot of his interest in the great work of his 
life. The address is written with all the vigor 
and enthusiasm of youth. horticola. 
-♦ ♦ «- 
REMARKS AND COMMENTS. 
I regret very much that I have not the 
pleasure of being personally acquainted with 
“ Horticola,” as from his instructive notes in 
the Rural I consider him one of our most skill¬ 
ful horticulturists, as well as a close and very 
accurate observer. On this account I dislike 
to “cross swords” with him; but what does 
he mean by saying that "roofing slate and 
cedar shingles make the best mulch for straw¬ 
berries he ever used ?” 
Will " Hoi-ticola ” please be so good as to 
give a few notes descriptive of the Caroline 
Raspberry ? How does it compare with tho 
other varieties in hardiness ? Has it been tried 
at the Rural Farm, and if so, with what re¬ 
sult ? [It is one of our most hardy and pro¬ 
ductive kiuds, and there is scarcely another 
raspberry—certainly no other yellow variety 
—that we more confidently recommend to Mr. 
Parnell and to our readers in general.— Eds.] 
The Spanish Chestnut is rather tender 
when young, and in such a severe Winter as 
the past one it must be expected to be injured, 
especially when grown in an exposed situa¬ 
tion; but when the trees become large they 
pass through our severest Winters without 
sustaining any injury. I advise all who con¬ 
template planting this chestnut to plant in the 
Spring. Cut the trees severely back and give 
them a thorough mulching before the middle 
of May, and be careful to select good and 
strong plants with an abundance of fibrous 
roots, if planted in an exposed situation. 
Small trees will do well if planted in a shel¬ 
tered place, provided grass and weeds are not 
permitted to grow around their roots. In good 
garden soil this species grows with the greatest 
rapidity. I have a tree that is over 20 feet 
high, which I raised from a nut planted in the 
Fall of 1875, This has received no special care 
or attention. I have also a noble specimen 
over 40 years of age, which is over 38 feet 
high, with wide-spreading branches; it meas¬ 
ures 11 feet in circumference one foot from its 
base. The fruit is large, but of rather poor 
flavor when eaten raw. Before it is eaten, 
however, it should be cooked, which consider¬ 
ably improves tho flavor. 
Our native chestnut tre>-s have only a very 
few burrs on them this season. Chestnuts will 
be very scarce in this vicinity. 
Horticola remarks, page 562, that straw¬ 
berries rotted badly the past season on account 
of the wet. Mine were mulched with wheat 
straw, and it would have been a difficult task 
to have found a rotten berry', excepting those 
the birds injured. 
It seems very singular why the Ott Fear is 
so very variable. 1 have three trees from 
which I obtained three bushels of excellent 
pears, so far as size is concerned. Of these 
bushels were of fine flavor, while the other 
half bushel, ohtained from another tree, were 
worthless on account of their indifferent 
flavor. As my trees are not over 600 feet 
apart, and are in all respects treated in the 
same way, I am at a loss to account for this 
difference. Can it be that it arises from hav¬ 
ing two varieties of this pear in cultivation, or 
is it due to local causes ? The tree is of mod¬ 
erate growth and remarkably productive. The 
fruit is small, of a greenish-yellow marked 
with russet, and of a rich, sugary flavor. 
*On August 26 I picked all my Rostiezer 
pears. From one small tree I obtained three 
pecks of fine fruit. It is of medium size and 
of an exceedingly sweet and pleasant flavor. 
The tree is of vigorous growth and a profuse 
bearer. In season from the middle to the end 
of August. The size and quality of the fruit 
are greatly improved by judicious thinning 
when the fruit is about half-grown. 
"Vv ith the exception of Beth Boyden, all the 
other varieties of straw berries continue to stand 
the drought remarkably well; but I think that 
young plants will be scarce next season, in this 
vicinity at least; my plants are producing no 
runnere. 
That excellent pear, the Wadleigh, I think 
originated in New Hampshire. Be this as it 
may, it is an excellent sort and should be 
brought prominently into public notice. In¬ 
deed, I do not recollect seeing tho name even 
mentioned in the nurserymen's catalogues or 
horticultural publications, but I am in hope 
that this brief note will iuduee some of our 
amateurs at least to give it a trial. I am cer¬ 
tain that they will not regret so doing. The 
tree is of vigorous growth and is remarkably 
productive. The fruit is of medium size and 
of a roundish shape, with a beautiful yellow 
skin and a rich, juicy, delicious flavor. It is 
in season the lust week in August. [J. J. 
Thomas speaks of it as •’melting, juicy, very 
good. Origin, N. H.” A. J. Downing says 
of it:—“ Flesh white, line, a little gritty, juicy, 
melting, pleasant; September. Origin, N. H.” 
—Eds.] Chas. E. Parnell. 
Queens Co., L. I. 
Testing Tomatoes. 
Being desirous of testing tomatoes as to 
earliness adaptability to market, etc., I pur¬ 
chased, last Spring, iu New York of the lead¬ 
ing seedsmen, a packet each of 30 varieties, 
