OF ONE ACRE. 
43 
to have your asparagus for cutting a full week earlier 
than your neighbor who plants deep. 
VARIETIES OF ASPARAGUS. 
As mentioned above, this succulent is capable of 
great improvement by careful selection of seed from 
the best stalks. The old Purple Top variety is no 
longer grown, its place having been taken by the 
larger shoots and better quality of the variety known 
as Conover’s Colossal. This latter, however, has been 
propagated so extensively and with so little care that 
it is now almost impossible to obtain seed or plants 
that will produce the splendid shoots of the original 
stock. Of the new varieties Barr’s Mammoth seems 
to be the most promising, and as grown in some fields 
in the vicinity of Philadelphia produces shoots which 
will average nearly an inch in diameter. 
BEANS. 
The first planting of snaps or dwarf bush beans 
can be made when the first planting of peas and 
beets are sown, but will not do as well nor produce 
beans of as fine quality as those planted about two 
weeks later, when the weather has become warmer 
and more settled. These yield very abundantly, and 
a drill fifty feet long will produce as many as can be 
used in a large family. While planting in a drill, 
for the sake of convenience and quickness in plant¬ 
ing, the seed should be dropped in hills about ten 
inches apart and five seeds to a hill. If the beans 
are kept picked closely, the plants will continue longer 
