PRACTICAL PAPERS—MARKET GARDENING. 
153 
and withal is very easily cared for. The only objection is the 
fact that it takes three years from seed, or two years from^ 
bedding before it begins to yield a return, but it then yields so 
bountifully, is so easily harvested, ships so nicely, and is in 
such active demand at home that it w T ell repays the waiting. 
We grow our own plants and at one year old set them out in 
rows three feet apart, and nine inches apart in the row, on 
land heavily manured—at least eighty loads to the acre—and 
stirred as deep as a Mapes’ subsoil plow can get, following 
after an ordinary turning plow. Annually we dress the 
ground six inches each side of the rows with enough salt to 
make the ground look white, or a corresponding amount of 
fish, pork, or pickle brine, and cultivate in as much manure 
as can be worked under from that applied as a mulch in the 
fall. On this rich ground we often sow midway between the 
rows early radish, spinage or lettuce. They grow very fast 
and are pretty much out of the way when we cease cutting 
the asparagus in June. Our plantation consists of three- 
fourths of an acre, and we shall add one-half acre more to 
make what we think a due proportion in a garden of twenty 
acres. Last year, the first season ours was cut, it yielded 
$400 per acre. 
String Beans and Sweet Corn, as garden crops, are only 
moderately profitable, yielding in our experience a gross re¬ 
turn of $50, and net profit of about $30 per acre ; and since 
neither of them allows a second crop to follow in the same sea¬ 
son, we cannot afford to use our most valuable land for this 
purpose, but lease cheaper lands in the neighborhood. Of the 
former one half acre, and Of the latter three to four acres are 
marketed. 
Beets. —Of early beets we annually grow about one third of 
an acre. We sow them in rows alternately ten to twenty 
inches apart; allow plants to stand six inches apart in the rows, 
and begin to sell as soon as the roots are an inch and a half 
thick—usually about the middle of June—and clear the ground 
in about four weeks. They retail at five cents for bunches 
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