NEW YORK, JUNE 22, 1901. 
ASPARAGUS IN NEW JERSEY. 
among the MONMOUTH COUNTY GROWERS. 
Rust-Resisting Varieties Needed. 
LOW CROP, HIGH PRICES.—Asparagus Is a very 
hardy plant, and will endure much frost when dor¬ 
mant, but it will not grow fast in chilly weather. The 
cold wet Spring has delayed growth from roots al¬ 
ready weakened by attacks of rust last Fall and the 
result is a shortage of the crop, estimated at nearly 
one-half of the average cut up to the end of May, 
among the Monmouth Co., N. J., growers. Prices 
have been quite satisfactory, however, some of the 
fancy lots bringing the ex¬ 
treme figures of ?6 to $7.50 
per dozen bunches of 
pounds weight; good prime 
green and white bringing $3 
to $4, and smaller grades $2 
to $2.50. The concensus of 
opinion among experienced 
growers is that asparagus 
still pays the careful grower 
who has suitable soil and 
facilities better than any 
similar product, and a larger 
acreage has been planted 
this Spring despite the bug¬ 
bear of rust, than for many 
years. Reliance is placed on 
high feeding, very thorough 
cultivation, a shorter season 
of cutting, and the selection 
of resistant varieties. 
THE VARIETIES.—Cono¬ 
ver’s Colossal, which origi¬ 
nated in this county a gen¬ 
eration ago, ip very thor¬ 
oughly discredited since the 
coming of the rust, as it 
proves a ready victim, the 
tops browning early in Au¬ 
gust. No asparagus is more 
productive under ordinary 
conditions, but it also has a 
tendency to throw up many 
small shoots instead of the 
iarge solitary sprouts so de¬ 
sired by shippers of prime 
qualities. The Palmetto has 
proven most resistant of all, 
with the possible exception 
of the French Argenteuil, 
and nearly 70 acres have just 
been planted in these va¬ 
rieties, the only exception 
being a single trial of Don¬ 
ald’s Elmira, which is 
thought to have some of the 
characteristics of Palmetto. 
W. B. Conover and F. S. 
Hendrickson, of Middletown, 
the former representing a 
planting of 50 acres or more, 
have set all their new ground to Palmetto, while Ed¬ 
win Beekman, also an extensive grower, pins his 
faith to the Argenteuil. Mr. Beekman’s experience 
with the Argenteuil goes back 17 years. He has im¬ 
ported the French seed by the hundredweight, and 
thinks it the most vigorous and highly developed va¬ 
riety for his purpose. When heavily fertilized it 
makes an enormous growth, sending up shoots nearly 
two inches thick, but it will not tolerate neglect and 
give profitable cuttings. Mr. Beekman piloted the 
writer to one field, set last Spring with one-year 
crowns, where stalks seven feet high could be readily 
found. The shoots came up singly, and towered up 
Wk.e young pine trees. The spjl was a sandy hillside. 
which had been cropped to exhaustion with corn and 
grain by former occupants, but good applications of 
stable manure and chemicals had brought it to a re¬ 
sponsive condition for asparagus. 
FIGHTING RUST.—The rust-resisting quality is 
thought to be due to a bloom covering the cuticle of 
the varieties mentioned, making the germination of 
the spores more uncertain. It is quite certain that 
well-fed plants of Palmetto and Argenteuil generally 
remain green and thrifty late In the Fall, long after 
the susceptible kinds have died off as far as top 
growth is concerned. Where these varieties appear 
to suffer severely from rust investigation shows that 
It 
' . 
HYBRID AQUILEGIAS. Fig. 180. See Rubalisms, Page 438. 
either starvation or excessively late cutting is at fault 
or, more likely, the affected plants are not true to 
name. Esculent asparagus is largely bisexual in 
character, and much cross-pollination takes place. 
The best commercial seeds produce a mixed progeny, 
as, until the advent of the rust and the discrimination 
of resistant varieties, it was not considered necessary 
to grow the seeds carefully. Mr. Beekman finds 
American-grown Argenteuil seed inferior to the im¬ 
ported for this reason. In the asparagus districts of 
France practically no other kind is grown, and the 
seeds are consequently reliable. 
NEEDS OF THE PLANT.—The requirements of 
asparagus have been so carefully studied by growers 
that little difference of opinion remains. It is an 
herbaceous plant of the Lily family, with an almost 
unlimited capacity for storing vital energy in its ca¬ 
pacious root system. Give it a warm, light soil and 
clean culture, and you can scarcely overfeed It with 
either manure or chemicals. The shortening of the 
growing season by the rust is, however, a serious 
matter, and if not controlled by the selection of varie¬ 
ties, the plants must be given a better chance than in 
the past to recuperate after cutting. Many fields were 
seen where cutting stopped the last week in May, in¬ 
stead of the old way of continuing until near July 4. 
The practice of cutting underground to secure white 
stems with only a tip of 
green continues in full force, 
as only such stalks are rated 
as “prime,” and bring the 
best price. The growers ac¬ 
knowledge better returns in 
proportion than usual from 
the culls and green stalks, 
and an examination of mar¬ 
ket reports shows much bet¬ 
ter quotations for green as¬ 
paragus than for many years 
past. When the consuming 
public really learns the dif¬ 
ference there will doubtless 
be an enormous increase in 
the demand for good green 
asparagus rather than the 
hard white stalks. 
These Jersey growers do 
not take much stock in the 
idea of fighting the rust by 
means of fungicides. It is 
hard to get Bordeaux Mix¬ 
ture to adhere to the smooth 
stems or to cover the finely- 
divided foliage. The large 
growers would not stick at 
the cost of such huge ma¬ 
chines as have been develop¬ 
ed by the Long Island Ex¬ 
periment Station, which cost 
about $300, if they could be 
convinced of their practical 
efficiency in killing spores 
and prolonging the grow¬ 
ing season of the plant. It 
takes a large quantity of 
spraying solution and much 
power to cover such a mass 
of vegetation as is repre¬ 
sented by an acre of aspara¬ 
gus, averaging five or six 
feet high when in full 
growth. Mr. Conover in¬ 
formed me that rust appear¬ 
ed earlier on fields of the 
Conover variety where cut¬ 
ting ceased earliest, so that 
the growing season was not 
much lengthened by short¬ 
ening the cutting season, but evidently less of the 
stored energy of the preceding year’s growth was 
consumed. Other growers did not report the same 
experience. In their view the fields cut least held out 
best, and responded more energetically the next year. 
It has become a question whether it may not be pos¬ 
sible to lay by weakened fields and only cut alter¬ 
nate years, but all agree that a better price must be 
obtained for the product to warrant two years’ cul¬ 
ture for each crop^_ w. v. f. 
The annual strawberry meeting of the Lorain County 
(Ohio) Horticultural Society was held at the residence 
of G. N. Caruthers, near Oberlin, June 14. Strawberry 
culture was discussed in ail Its branches. 
VoL. LX. No. 2682. 
$1 PER year. 
