ASP 
ASP 
when it should be sown in drills on a 
piece of light sandy soil, at about a foot 
and a half from each other ; at the end 
of the following summer the plants may 
be thinned out of the rows till they 
stand six inches apart, and thus may 
remain till they are wanted for the 
beds. Three-years old plants are per¬ 
haps the best for final planting, though 
some recommend them to be but two 
years. The former are the strongest, 
and therefore will bear cutting soonest; 
it is not advisable to have them older, 
or they may refuse the removal. The 
beds should be made in September, on 
a piece of dry rich and light earth, a 
heavy coat of dung should be trenched 
in, and the ground marked off into beds 
of the required size. Narrow beds are 
preferable, because the sun penetrates 
them more effectually, and the buds are 
consequently earlier. We would never 
plant more than three rows in each bed, 
and, therefore, they need not be more 
than three feet wide, which will leave 
the plants nine inches from each other, 
and the same distance from the out¬ 
sides ; unless the ground is naturally 
wet and springy it is not necessary to 
elevate the beds at the planting, but is 
preferable, to make them on the level, 
merely throwing about three inches of 
the soil from the alleys over the plants 
when they are in their places ; the alleys 
should be a foot and a half wide, and at 
the corners of the beds stout stakes 
may be driven in, that at the future 
dressings it may be easy to tell where 
the outsides should be. October is a 
good time to plant, though, should cir¬ 
cumstances prevent it then, the opera¬ 
tion may be performed in February or 
March. The beds will only require to 
be kept free of weeds till the following 
autumn, when a good dressing of ma¬ 
nure should be given them, first forking 
up the surface of the bed, then laying 
on the dung, and covering it over with 
soil from the alleys; and this should be 
repeated annually, and may be called 
the winter dressing. In spring the beds 
should be carefully forked over, so as 
to loosen all the soil without injuring 
the crowns of the plants, and the soil 
raked down into the alleys till the plants 
are only about an inch below the surface; 
this requires to be done just before the 
plants begin to grow—if done sooner 
they may be injured by frost, and if left 
till a later period some will get broken 
by the rake. Asparagus should not be 
cut till the third season after planting, 
nor should the cutting be continued too 
long, or, as a matter of course, the roots 
are greatly weakened, and the produce 
of the following year will be inferior. 
At the autumn dressing, after the plants 
have attained a size and strength suffi¬ 
cient to become useful, salt may be used 
until the manure to great advantage, 
laying a moderately thin coat of it along 
with the dung over the whole of the bed 
and covering in the usual way. In 
establishments of any pretensions Aspa¬ 
ragus forms a considerable item among 
the forced productions ; for this purpose 
it is usual to take old roots from the 
beds in the autumn, and at intervals, 
proportionate to the required supply, 
hot-beds of moderate strength are made, 
and when the heat becomes steady at 
55 degrees, the bed is covered with 
light earth and the roots placed thereon; 
an erroneous practice then follows of 
earthing up the shoots as they grow, in 
order, it is said, to make them look 
white and tender. It is altogether a 
mistake thus to value Asparagus for its 
bleached stems, and whether grown in 
the ordinary bed out of doors or at an 
earlier season as a forced vegetable, as 
much length and substance should be 
got above ground as possible, for it is 
only the green portion that can be 
eaten, the blanched part being totally 
useless. We would advise, instead of 
earthing up the stems, to throw off the 
lights, as much as the weather may 
permit, to induce a sturdy thickened 
growth, and thus by the admission of 
plenty of air prevent them becoming 
etiolated. 
When Asparagus is required in any 
quantity at an early season a much bet¬ 
ter method of forcing will be found in 
the following course. The ordinary 
beds in the garden should be reduced in 
width to about two feet and a half, or 
