164 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Manr., 1899. 
The variety chiefly grown is Canoyer’s Colossal, which is the staple 
market variety. For home use Barr’s Mammoth, which is very tender and 
succulent, 18 2 good kind to grow. 
There is no doubt that there arc very large possibilities for asparagus- 
growing in this country. It is a vegetable which is hardly ever scen, and 
growers can command fancy prices, For market, the tops are tied in bunches 
about the size of a round pickle bottle, and the usual price here per bunch is 
ls. or Is. 6d. 
USING ASPARAGUS. 
Take a couple of bundles of asparagus, peel off the skins, rinse in cold 
water; tie again in small bundles, dip into boiling salted water ; boil until 
tender, lift gently, strain, untie the bundles, dispose the asparagus artistically 
ona dish, the heads being turned towards the centre of the dish, and serve 
with some breaderumbs browned in fresh butter. 
Second REcIPE. 
Boil the asparagus in the same manner as above, aud serve with white 
sauce. 
Turep Recree. 
Asparagus Salad. 
Prepare and boil the asparagus as explained above; dish up in a deep 
dish, and cover with a sauce made thus: Put into a basin the yoke of a hard- 
boiled egg, rub it smcothly with one teaspoonful of sugar, a-half teaspoonful 
of fine salt, as much mustard or little pepper; add a tablespoonful of good 
pure vinegar, and one ditto of sweet olive oil; mix well, pour over the asparagus, 
and serve cold. 
ELECTRICITY AND AGRICULTURE. 
Science as applied to the operations of agriculture has for many years engaged 
the attention of enthusiastic experimentalists, and in many cases the results of 
applied science have been little short of marvellous. The idea of the applica- 
tion of clectricity to growing crops is not by any means new. We have 
ourselves achieved good results by using it in connection with a erop of 
potatoes. The California Fruit Grower, writing on the subject, says :— 
Perhaps the most extensive and conelusive experiments on the relation of 
electricity to plants growing were those of Dr. Selim Lemstrom, a physicist in 
the University of Helsingfors, Finland. He became convinced that the rapid 
srowth of plants in the short summers of Finland and Spitzbergen was due to 
the highly electrified atmosphere. Laboratory experiments were so successful 
that in the summer of 1885 a field trial was made with barley. Part of the field 
was covered with parallel wires, abont a yard apart, which were secured to 
insulators on low posts at the margin of the field. At distances of 18 or 20 
inches each wire was supplied with metal points, through which a current could 
discharge into the air. The whole was connected with a Holtz electric machine, 
and the current was supplied from 6 to 10 o’clock in the morning andfrom 5 to 
9 o’clock in the evening, from the middle of June until the first of September. 
The barley was well up when the experiment began, and at harvest time it was 
found that the yield of this portion of the field was 85 per cent. greater 
than the other; also that the quality was correspondingly improved. The 
following year the experiment was repeated upon a more extensive scale. In 
this case garden vegetables were the plants tested, and white beets, red bects, 
potatoes, radishes, parsnips, leeks, celeriac, turnips, and rutabagas gave increased 
yields in the order named varying from 107 per cent. to 1 per cent. On the 
other hand, carrots and kohlrabi showed losses of 5 per cent. and cabbages of 
43 per cent. Further experiments with cereals and potatoes gave results that 
were considered very favourable. 
