1883.] 
EARLY PURPLE ARGENTEUIL ASPARAGUS. 
23 
It is not advisable to plant in the midwinter 
months, especially in outside borders, as the 
soil is then very cold and wet. If Vines 
cannot be planted before November it is far 
better to defer the operation until spring, say 
at the end of January or beginning of Feb¬ 
ruary ; later in the season they will be com¬ 
mencing to grow and cannot then, with safety, 
be pruned or cut as may be required. 
In planting young Vines from pots the 
soil should be shaken away, and the roots 
spread out fully, and laid as near the surface 
as may be possible; the soil should then be 
filled in, made firm, and watered, if necessary, 
in the usual way. 
Another method which is greatly to be 
commended, is to plant the young growing 
Vines that have been raised from eyes during 
the same season. For those who have the 
convenience to raise their own Vines, and to 
plant them out in the month of May or during 
any of the summer months, there is a gain of 
at least one year’s growth. This, of course, 
can only be practised where the Vines are 
planted in the inside borders. The difficulty 
of carriage, and the consequent damage to 
the tender growing plants prevents the 
Nurserymen from supplying Vines for plant¬ 
ing in this condition to any extent, otherwise 
it would be largely adopted. We have 
planted Vines in May from a six-inch pot, 
that have made rods thirty feet in length the 
same season, and formed stems of correspond¬ 
ing thickness. We have also planted out in 
June and July with nearly equal success. In 
planting these growing Vines from pots the 
ball need not be broken, as the roots have 
not yet become matted, and consequently, if 
the soil is pressed gently around them, and 
well watered, there is no check, and the plant 
commences to grow away immediately. 
Mr. Thomson, when at Dalkeith, adopted 
the plan of raising the Vines from eyes struck 
in square pieces of turf instead of pots ; in 
these the Vines rooted, and were planted out 
into the border without disturbance. A very 
simple and efficient method. 
The distance at which to plant depends, to 
a great extent, on the style or mode of train¬ 
ing to be adopted. If we here consider the 
rods or stems as separate plants we must then 
allow space between the stems or plants for 
the proper development or extension of the 
side or bearing shoots, and as these extend 
from two to two feet six inches on either side, 
it follows that a space of from four to five 
feet is required. For permanent Vines the 
distance of five feet is not at all too much, 
although frequently they are planted much 
closer. Growers for market plant frequently 
at from two to two feet six inches apart, but 
such Vines are only of a temporary character. 
Other cultivators plant what are termed the 
permanent Vines at five feet apart, and intro¬ 
duce supernumerary plants between them to 
produce a crop while the permanent Vines are 
growing up, when they are cut out, and their 
space occupied by the latter.—A. F. Barron. 
EABLY PUBPLE ABGENTEUIL 
ASPABAGUS. 
OTWITHSTANDING the generally re¬ 
ceived opinion that there is only one 
variety of Asparagus, long observation 
has convinced me that not only is 
there a material dissimilarity in size, shape, 
and colour of asparagus, but also in precocity 
of maturity as well as in the precocity of annual 
growth, and that in these features the Early 
Purple Argenteuil is an especially marked 
variety. I have grown Connover’s Colossal 
and The Giant, but when these arrived at full 
maturity I could not distinguish much difference 
in them from the old and usual type. The 
Early Argenteuil is of large size and of good 
shape, without the protuberant head and narrow 
neck sometimes seen in asparagus. The points 
of the young shoots are also of a distinct 
pinkish purple colour. I have planted this 
variety singly, the plants from 4 to 5 feet apart 
each way ; and also in beds, the rows 18 
inches and 2 feet apart, and 18 inches from 
plant to plant; but I prefer plenty of room, 
which is one of the French secrets of success, 
and the single plant mode I find not only the 
most productive, but the most profitable. Some 
very fine heads were cut in 1882, from the 
beds made in 1879, but from the single plants 
put out the same year the asparagus has been 
much superior, some of the young shoots 
reaching inches in circumference and of 
corresponding length, the length, however, 
depending upon the depth of the covering or 
