THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Mabch 19, 1861, 
be hard; if more, they will come drawn and small. Top heat 
can be regulated by air-giving. Plants before being thus raised 
should be planted from three to seven years. In raising such 
roots at the end of October, or the beginning of November, it 
is best to choose a bed that had been little cut from the previous 
season, so that the buds should he more perfect and better 
ripened.. At that time the heat given should not be above 50° 
at first, in order that the forcing may be gradual. About six 
weeks are the average time from taking up the roots until 
gathering the shoots, either by cutting or twisting them off. 
In January a month will be the average time, and in March 
about eighteen days. 
There is much expense in thus forcing Asparagus so far as 
the value of the plants is considered, as it is little use thus 
raising them until they are at least from three to five years old, 
and then they are of no more utility afterwards. The only 
counterbalancing advantage is the rotation of cropping in the 
kitchen garden—almost everything doing well after trenched-up 
Asparagus-beds, and Asparagus again succeeding Celery, &c., 
nicely. The entire loss of the plants thus forced has led to 
various plans for forcing Asparagus in the beds in which it 
grows. Thus, supposing that the beds are 4 feet wide, and 
alleys between 2 feet wide, the alleys are dug out 2 feet or more 
deep, and filled with hot fermenting material, and loose earth 
being placed over the bed—that, too, is covered with fermenting 
material, and canvass or mats over all. In this case the shoots 
are cut when they come through the six inches or so of light 
soil, and will be white; but if the shoots are exposed for a few 
days in a heated place, and the ends resting on damp moss, 
the points will become green. This would be better done by 
placing frames over the bed and no litter inside. 
SEA-KAXE 
like Asparagus likes a deep, rich, sandy loam, and requires much 
css heat to bring it to perfection than Asparagus does. Where 
much nicety is wanted it may be grown exactly as represented 
in fig. 33, only the covering should be wooden shutters. It 
ooks very nice, and strong, and short when thus grown, and the 
less light admitted at the forcing time the better—not but that 
the plant, and especially the flower-heads, are very nice even 
111 S* ^ reen 8 ^ ate > but the object is to place on the table 
stubby shoots about 6 inches in length, and as white as possible. 
-Doing easily excited it is forced readily in the open air where it 
has grown especially after Christmas, by covering the stools 
with pots, boxes, or even mounds of ashes or bog earth, and 
surrounding them with leaves or other fermenting material in a 
sweet state. When forced early in this way the fading leaves 
should be stripped off at the end of October, the crowns covered 
with ashes, and then litter or leaves thrown over the ground to 
keep the autumn heat in. Very little heat—say from 45° to 50° 
will cause it to start after Christmas. As fine plants may be 
obtained the second year from seed, all this litter may be 
avoided by lifting the plants carefully, and putting them in a 
hotbed where all light is excluded, only the heat must be mild— 
hardly ever above 50° to 53°. It is still more easily managed 
in Mushroom-houses, cellars, stokeholes, or in any dark place 
of a house where there is the requisite heat. Beginners who are 
not sure in these matters may, instead of placing these roots in 
soil in a bed, place them thickly in largish pots, and then if the 
dung, &c., should be too hot, the pots can be raised and set on 
its surface. Pots placed in any heated house could easily be 
covered with another pot, and all the holes secured so as to 
keep out light. We have thus had it first-rate on the floor of a 
6 
Fig. 33. 
5 
5 
✓ ^ Z' S 
2 
2 
2 
2 
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1 
4* 
1 
4s 
1 
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^ qs ^ ** » o * 0 r< /-v 
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1 Beds built with pigeon-holed sides below the earth-line. I 3 Rough stones, &c., for allowing heat to penetrate beneath the bed. 
2 Spaces between for dung linings, covered with stout boards, or left 4 Soil. 
open, and heated with hot-water pipes.] | 5 Coverings of beds, wood or glass. 
Where nicety is required something of the plan shown in 
fig. 33, should be adopted. 1 Represents beds from 4|- feet to 
5 feet wide sunk 3 feet beneath the ground level, supported by 
walls brick on bed, the lower half being pigeon-holed. 2 Are 
open spaces between, either for dung linings or for heating by 
hot-water pipes, the top being securely covered with wooden 
flaps, and these in cold weather in winter covered with moss or 
litter to prevent heat escaping. 3 Would represent the bottom 
of the pit filled with rough rubble as loosely piled as possible, 
covered with rough gravel at top, so as to allow the heat to 
penetrate beneath the soil rising as high as the line 4. 5 Would 
be covers of wood or glass. The matter might be simplified by 
having the one side of the pit a foot higher than the other, a 
sash laid across in the usual incline to the south, and these 
sashes would afterwards come in for frames, &c., in summer. 
In such a case the pits should run east and west. If with span- 
roofs they should run north and south. Good strong plants 
should be used at planting, and in from two years the pits will be 
fit for forcing. The soil should be light and rich; and there be'ng 
no possibility of stagnant water, manure water as nitrate of soda, 
a little salt, and guano weak, should be used freely in summer. 
Eour of such beds 20 feet long would supply a largish establish¬ 
ment after Christmas, but no more than two should be forced in 
one season—that is to say, the beds forced this winter of the 
year 1860, and spring of 1861, must grow all this summer, and 
have no gathering taken from them the next, especially the early 
bed, and, of course, will be forced in the winter of 1862 and 
the spring of 1863. By suck a mode the same beds, if well 
manured, will last many years. By sinking the beds thus deep, 
and rough chambering with stones, the heat is at once com¬ 
municated beneath the soil as well as around it, whatever the 
mode of heating. Near a coal pit hot water would be best and 
cheapest. 
vinery, and close to the flue in a greenhouse. After January 
there will be enough heat in a cellar under ground. 
Unlike Asparagus, there is but little waste in thus lifting the 
roots of Sea-kale; for if the forced roots when done with are cut 
into pieces 5 inches or so in length, or even less, and are laid 
aside until March or April, these planted 6 inches apart in nice 
pulverised soil, and in rows 18 inches apart, will be fit for 
forcing again after the second summer. The smaller parts of 
the roots are generally the best for this purpose. The top end 
should not be buried, better leave it level with the ground, and 
put a handful of ashes over it. I once tried splitting the tops 
of some large crowns in planting, but that did not do—most of 
them rotted. Seed sown in April, and the seedlings thinned 
or replanted the following April, will be fit for taking up and 
forcing in winter. The taking-up plan is every way the most 
economical, cleanest, and neatest. Fine crops of blanched 
shoots may be obtained in May by covering the stools out of 
doors securely with pots or boxes as soon as they push freely; 
but that can hardly be considered forcing. We never saw the 
shoots finer than when merely covered with 6 inches or 7 inches 
of peat earth, removing it when the heads were cut. 
BROAD BEANS. 
These are not very generally forced ; but with some families, 
very young Beans with nice bacon are looked forward to with more 
relish then even Green Peas. For this purpose the Dwarf Fan 
Cluster is the best. Sow in boxes in January, rather thickly, 
anywhere so there be a little heat. By the end of February or 
beginning of March, transplant four stout plants into an eight- 
inch pot, using rich loamy soil, firm the plants well in the pot, 
and if kept in a temperature from 40° to 50° at night, and from 
45° to 55° during the day. Beans may be gathered from a month 
to six weeks before they can be got from a forwarded crop in the 
