12 
Colorado Experiment Station 
soil appears to be wet when in reality it is not. If this method is 
used, the garden should be thoroughly soaked and not sprinkled 
again for a week. Small sprinklings every day or two will cause 
the plants to be shallow rooted. 
GARDEN INSECTS AND DISEASES 
Every gardener who has, or anticipates, any trouble with in¬ 
sects or plant diseases should obtain from the Colorado Agricul¬ 
tural Experiment Station, Fort Collins, copies of the following 
bulletins, which give information which will help him recognize 
and control these pests: 
“Diseases of Colorado Crop Plants,” Bulletin No. 212. 
“Insects and Insecticides,” Bulletin No. 210. 
Farmers’ Bulletin 856, “Control of Diseases and Insect Ene¬ 
mies of the Home Vegetable Garden,” may be obtained from the 
Division of Publications, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture, Washing¬ 
ton, D. C. 
ASPARAGUS 
If the plants used are purchased from a seedsman, good one- 
year-old plants should be procured. One may grow very satis¬ 
factory plants from seed. The seed are gathered when ripe and 
put in water in order to soften the pulp which surrounds them. 
They are mashed up and the hard seed worked out, washed, and 
dried. They are stored during the winter and planted in the 
spring. The rows should be two and a half or three feet apart to 
permit horse cultivation and- the seed planted one to two inches 
apart in the row and about one inch deep. Seed may also be pur¬ 
chased from reputable seed houses. These plants will be ready 
for transplanting the following spring. 
Asparagus plants are either pistillate or staminate, the former 
producing seed while the latter do not. It has been shown by ex¬ 
periment that the' staminate plants produce the largest crop and 
these should be used when possible. It is hard to distinguish be¬ 
tween the male and female plants before the end of the second 
year, when the seed are produced for the first time. Therefore, if 
plants are left in the seedbed until two years old, they may be 
separated and the male plants only used for planting. 
When ready to set out the plants, trenches or furrows four 
and one-half or fiive feet apart and six to seven inches deep are 
made in the field, and plants set in the bottom of the furrows about 
two feet apart. When set, the plants are covered with two or 
three inches of soil. The furrow is not entirely filled at the time 
of planting, but this is done gradually during cultivation. To grow 
blanched asparagus, the plants are usually set a few inches deeper. 
