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270 
ASPARAGUS. 
lected and thoroughly good seed in spring, once | till it perfectly pulverizes into a rich light earth. 
in several years for a single plantation; and, when 
the plants are one year, or at most two years old, 
to transplant them into permanent beds ; and to 
begin to cut off the annual shoots for esculent 
use in the third year after transplantation. The 
seed-beds are usually four feet broad; the trans- 
planted plants are usually in rows, at the dis- 
tance of 9 inches from plant to plant, and of 12 
or even 18 inches from row to row; and some- 
times the seeds are sown in the permanent beds, 
and merely thinned out to the proper distances. 
The soil, in every case, is as nearly as possible a 
dry, sandy, light, mellow loam, trenched to the 
depth of 23 or 3 feet, and very powerfully man- 
ured. <A covering of dung or litter is laid over 
the beds in winter to protect the plants from the 
frost ; and in spring, this covering is raked off 
the plants and dug into the alleys, and the beds 
are stirred with a fork in order to increase ab- 
sorption of heat and air, and the infiltration and 
ascent of moisture. Plants raised according to 
| this general method of culture will yield shoots 
| in excellent condition from the fifth till the fif- 
teenth or seventeenth year after sowing; and 
they may be forced a week or two by warm cover- 
ings of dung upon the beds, or extensively forced, 
but with the speedy death of the roots, by lifting 
the plants, and placing them on dung or tan beds. 
But some special modifications of this method of 
culture may: be strongly recommended, and are 
fitted to render it eminently efficient in relation 
both to natural growth and to forcing. Mr. 
Towers, who gives it a decided preference over 
all other modes of culture, and strongly insists 
on these modifications of it, remarks that this 
method is “ more novel and perhaps more scienti- 
fic than other modes, as it may be made to con-. 
form to the hypothesis of radical exudation, so 
that any gardener who practises it can introduce 
other vegetables between every row of his as- 
paragus, and thus avail himself of the nutritive 
matters which their radical processes yield to the 
soil.” 
The preparation of the bed for this method, 
fully more than even for the old methods, is a 
matter of very high importance. An asparagus 
bed is not made for a single season; but ‘if well 
laid out and properly planted, lasts for many 
years, and amply repays considerable cost and 
unusual labour in its formation. If the garden 
do not contain light, loamy, mellow soil, two feet 
deep, and incumbent upon a porous substratum, 
the whole plot must be artificially formed by the 
wheeling away of the native soil to the depth of 
two feet, the imparting of porosity to the subsoil 
by picking or admixture, and the filling up of the 
vacuum to the depth of two feet with transported 
and prepared soil. The most suitable material 
for the last of these purposes is the turf or sward 
of sheep-walk or natural pasture, pared 14 inch 
thick from a pulverulent or unstony and irreten- 
tive base, and broken, digged, turned and exposed 
The plot selected for the bed may measure about 
30 feet in length and 10 feet in width; and it 
ought to lie fully exposed to the south, in order 
that the sun’s rays may play as freely as possible 
over its whole surface. If the native soil be of 
suitable quality, let the gardener open at one end 
of the plot a trench two feet wide, and wheel the 
soil from it to a spot two or three feet beyond the 
other end of the plot; let him dig this trench, 
and every succeeding one to the depth of not less 
than two feet; let him clean out the bottom of 
each trench, and place upon it a good six inch 
layer of rich manure; let him have immediately 
adjacent to the plot at least six cart-loads of well- 
wrought leaf-soil, sea-weed, or perfectly good spit | 
dung; let him assign a fair proportion of this to 
each trench, and mix it thoroughly with as much 
of the soil for the filling up of the trench as will 
raise the surface six inches above the original 
level; and let him thus proceed, trench after 
trench, filling the whole space with moved and 
completely mixed materials, and employing the 
soil dug out of the first trench for the filling up 
of the last. If the native soil be unsuitable, the 
only differences in the process will be the total 
removal of the native soil from the plot, the use 
of the carried and prepared soil in its place, and | 
the employment of only three cart-loads of man- | 
ure for the bed instead of six. In order at once 
to equalize the surface, to improve the mixation | 
of its materials, to increase its capacity for aera- — 
tion, and to promote the slow fermentation or | 
eremacausis of its vegetable contents, the whole | 
bed, about a week after its formation, ought to | 
be first sprinkled with about a gallon of common 
salt, and then dug from end to end in the con- 
trary direction to that in which it was trenched, 
The bed ought if possible to be brought into this 
condition during the dry weather of winter, yet 
may quite advantageously be brought into it 
during the month of March. “After the ground 
shall have settled for a week, two beds, each three © 
feet wide, should be marked out; and this width | 
will admit of an alley between the beds, and one 
on each side of them, more than a foot in breadth. 
To form these, strain a line on the outside of the | 
beds, and two down the middle space between | 
them, so as to mark out the limits of the beds, 
and throw the earth out of the alley upon the 
beds, that their surface-level may be six inches | 
above the base of the alleys. If turf be at hand, | 
it would be right to place three inverted well cut 
turfs the whole length of the alleys, and thus to 
form good and solid walks; a dressing of salt 
should then be sprinkled over the turf to prevent 
the growth of the grass. Some persons use a deep 
layer of ashes ; but whatever be the material em- 
ployed, the beds ought to be raised a few inches 
above the walks,—not, however, to provide for 
drainage, but to render the future culture con- 
venient, and to give a finished appearance to the 
plantation.” 
