Read Ebook: Asparagus its culture for home use and for market A practical treatise on the planting cultivation harvesting marketing and preserving of asparagus with notes on its history by Hexamer F M Fred Maier

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The second crop of peas should be plowed under in late fall when perfectly ripe and dead, so that the land can be gotten into condition for planting in early spring. The land should be thoroughly plowed, and if the clay subsoil comes near the surface it should be loosened with the subsoil plow. Furrows are then run out four and a half to five feet apart, going twice in the furrow, and then cleaning out with shovels till there is a trench a foot deep. In the bottom of this trench place a good coat of black earth from the forest, or, if well-rotted manure can be had, use that of course. Set the plants twenty inches apart in the furrow, and by means of hand-rakes pull in enough earth to barely cover the crowns.

As growth begins, the soil is to be gradually worked in around the advancing shoots till the soil is level. Now give a dressing of 1,000 pounds per acre, alongside the rows, of a mixture of 900 pounds of acid phosphate, 500 pounds of fish scrap, 200 pounds of nitrate of soda, and 400 pounds of muriate of potash, and keep the plants cultivated shallowly and flat with an ordinary cultivator till the tops are mature. An application of salt may be useful if applied in the fall in making some matters in the soil available, but salt in itself is of no use whatever to the plants. We would never apply salt in the spring, as it has a tendency to lessen nitrification and to retard the earliness of the shoots.

The annual dressing of the fertilizer named should now be increased to a ton per acre, and it should be applied not later than February 1st in each year. After the tops have been cut in the fall it is a good plan to plow furrows from each side over the rows and to plow out the middles, for the shoots will always start earlier in an elevated ridge, which warms up earlier in the spring.

The second year after planting cutting may begin, and the shoots must be cut as fast as they show, care being taken to cut down near the crown of the roots, but not to injure the other shoots that may be starting. After cutting is over--and the length of time the bed should be cut is of little importance in the South, for the price at the point where it is shipped will always tell you when to stop--the soil should be again worked down flat, and if the growth has not been as satisfactory as could be wished, a dressing of 100 pounds per acre of nitrate of soda at this time will usually pay very well. Asparagus should always be bunched in a machine made for that purpose. The bunches are packed in crates just deep enough to hold the bunches set upright on a bed of moss, and a cover of the same damp moss should be placed on top.

Where there is a demand for green asparagus the planting should be done more shallowly in a simple furrow, and the entire culture should be flat and shallow. The shoots are cut at the surface of the ground after they have attained the proper length. One thing is to be observed in either method, and this is that during the cutting season everything long enough must be cut daily, and that the little shoots be not allowed to run up and branch out. Cull the shoots after they are all out and bunch accordingly. Green shoots should be bunched by themselves and not mixed with the blanched ones. None but new, light crates should be used, for a clean and neat package will always favor its contents in the selling.

W. F. MASSEY.

ASPARAGUS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA

The growing of asparagus for market in California is proving to be one of the most successful of its minor industries. There is a large area in the State which is exactly suited to the production of this vegetable. This is the region of sedimentary deposits, washed by waters that are to some extent brackish, or naturally saline. Commercial asparagus farming is limited to the reclaimed lands around the bay of San Francisco, the marshy deltas of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, and the so-called peat lands of Orange and San Luis Obispo counties. Small beds, however, for local consumption are to be found in California as generally and frequently as they are in other States.

There is a fascination about asparagus culture that is founded on legitimate financial returns. It is practically "a sure thing" when once established, and the conditions of climate and soil are such that the work attendant on production is a minimum in proportion to the return. No diseases of the plant have yet shown themselves in California, and it is seldom that the weather is unsteady enough to be a factor in limiting production. The deterring feature is the fact that it is not till the third year that a return can be expected on the investment. But as other crops, such as potatoes and beans, can be grown between the rows in the interim, the time of waiting is not so entirely an unproductive one as might at first be supposed.

The methods of preparing, planting, and working are practically the same in all sections of California. The proposed beds are plowed as deeply as possible and thoroughly fertilized. All of the soils appropriate for commercial asparagus farming are so light that deep cultivation is a comparatively easy matter. Furrows for planting are then run and made double depth. Some growers think it worth while to distribute fertilizer along these furrows and then turn for a third time, so as to enrich the ground immediately below the roots to be set out. These furrows are run from four to six feet apart, the latter being considered the better usage. In them one-year-old plants are then set by hand at distances varying from eighteen inches to three feet. The former distance is preferred by the Italian growers on Bay Farm Island in San Francisco Bay, but the Southern growers and those along the Sacramento River lean to the greater distance. The only difference seems to be whether there will be sufficient nutriment in the soil to force the plant into giving as large and tender shoots as where each plant is allowed a larger area. The plants are set with the crowns about four inches below the surface and the roots are carefully spread out before covering. Planting is done any time from November to April, but the middle of February is perhaps the most common time.

The culture for the first year consists in keeping the soil loose and free from weeds. Ordinarily other crops are grown between the rows, and their cultivation serves to keep the ground in proper condition. The asparagus is allowed to come up, feather, and seed without interference, no cutting being done the first year. Care, however, is taken to cut off the tops close to the ground in the fall before the seed begins to drop--the volunteer asparagus being the worst enemy in culture with which the grower has to deal. About the beginning of the rainy season a heavy coating of manure is placed over the beds and left to be leeched in by the rains.

The second year some growers cut more or less for market, but the bed is then longer in coming to its full strength and will not give so large a product the following years. There is a variation in the spring working, according to the nature of the land. Where the soil has a tendency to be cold, the first plowing is away from the rows, so as to let the sun more quickly down to the starting plants. Where the soil is light, or the season forward, this plowing is omitted. The latter plowings are toward the rows, the effort being by ridging to give a long blanched surface to the shoots. For the canneries where nothing but the white product is put up, the shoots are cut the instant they show their tips above the surface. The local market shows a preference for the greener shoot, and so before cutting it is allowed to stretch itself up into the light. The third year regular cutting begins, and from that time forward the beds increase in the quantity and quality of the product for the next fifteen years.

The methods of marketing are somewhat different from those practiced in the East. Little or none of the asparagus is bunched. It is packed loose in boxes holding from forty to fifty pounds, and the loose product is retailed to the consumer by the pound. The first boxes begin to go out by the beginning of February, though small quantities can be seen in market as early as January 15th. The canning contracts run, as a rule, from March 1st to June 15th. After that the weather is so dry that the yield stops unless the beds are irrigated. In most sections, however, irrigation is not necessary up to this time.

A notable exception to this is Bouldin Island, in the San Joaquin River. This is reclaimed land, and lies some six or eight feet below the surface of the water. The soil is river silt on a peat stratum thirty feet deep. The top is so fine and friable that it does not, in spite of the surrounding river, hold enough moisture to keep the vegetation alive during the hot spring months. A north wind in May would lift up the whole surface of the island and carry it away in dust. It is an easy matter, however, to let in water through the dikes, and this is done in sufficient quantities to keep the soil in place.

The question of profit in asparagus growing is one that can only be treated in a relative way. The industry is as yet so new, and instances of phenomenal returns from small holdings are so many, that it is hard to arrive at what might be called a commercial ratio of gain. It is safe to say, however, that with ordinary care there has never been an actual loss with asparagus culture in California. A low estimate of profit is probably per acre. The cost of preparation and planting where diking has not been necessary has seldom been more than 0 per acre. The gross returns taken from recent years' reports vary from 0 to 0 per acre, so that it can readily be seen that the return to the asparagus farmer is very fair. Most of the farms in California are in rented land. The Bay Farm Island people pay a ground rent of per acre. On Bouldin Island the rental is on a basis of 40 per cent. of the net proceeds. In Fig. 48 is presented a view of a fully established asparagus field on Bouldin Island.

WARREN CHENEY.

ASPARAGUS IN FRANCE

Asparagus is grown much more abundantly and to a much larger size in France than in England. The country is half covered with it in some places near Paris; farmers grow it abundantly, cottagers grow it, and everybody eats it. Near Paris it is chiefly grown for market in the valley of Montmorency and at Argenteuil, and it is cultivated extensively for market in many other places. About Argenteuil several thousand persons are employed in the culture of asparagus.

It is grown to a large extent among the grape-vines as well as alone. The vine under field culture is cut down to near the old stool every year, and allowed to make a few growths which are tied erect to a stake. One plant is put in each open spot, and given every chance of forming a large specimen, and this it generally does. The growing of asparagus among the vines is a very usual mode, and a vast space is thus covered with it about here.

It is also grown in other and special ways. Perhaps the simplest and most worthy of adoption is to grow it in shallow trenches. These are usually about four feet apart. The soil generally is a rather stiff sandy loam with calcareous matter in some parts, but the soil has not all to do with the peculiar excellence of the vegetable. It is the careful attention to the wants of the plant which produce such good results. Here, for instance, is a young plantation planted in March; and from the little ridges of soil between the trenches have just been dug a crop of small early potatoes. In England the asparagus would be left to the free action of the breeze, but the French cultivators never leave a young plant of asparagus to the wind's mercy while they can find a stake of oak about a yard long.

When staking these young plants they do not insert the support close to the bottom, as we are too apt to do in other instances, but a little distance off, so as to avoid the possibility of injuring the root; each stake leans over its plant at an angle of forty-five degrees, and when the shoots are big enough to touch it, or to be caught by the wind, they are tied to the stake. The ground in which this system is pursued being entirely devoted to asparagus, the stools are placed very much closer together than they are among the vines--say, at a distance of about a yard apart. The little trenches are about a foot wide and eight inches deep.

The best asparagus in France is grown at Argenteuil and by one system mainly. The plants--one-year seedlings --are planted in shallow trenches seven or eight inches deep, the plants a little more than one yard apart and the lines four feet apart. No manure is given at planting; no trenching or any preparation of the ground, beyond digging the shallow trench, takes place. In subsequent years a little manure is given over the roots in autumn; the soil, thrown out of the trenches and forming a ridge between them, is planted with a light crop in spring. In all subsequent years the earth is placed over the crowns in spring and removed in autumn.

Under this system good results are obtained in various soils, the only difference being that on cold clay soils the planting is not quite so deep. Every winter the growers notice the state of the young roots, and any spot in which one has perished they mark with a stick, to replace the plant the following March. Early every spring they pile up a little heap of fine earth over each crown. When the plantation arrives at its third year they increase the size of the mound, or, in other words, a heap of finely pulverized earth is placed over the stool, from which some, but not much, asparagus is cut the same year, taking care to leave the weak plants and those which have replaced others untouched for another year.

The process of gathering is interesting to the stranger. Asparagus knives of various forms are described in both French and English books, but one is confidently told by the growers that they are only fitted for amateurs who do not care to soil their fingers. The cultivators here never use a knife, the work being done with the hands. Gatherings are made every second day about the end of April, but in May when the growth is more active the stools are gathered from every day.

The French mode of cultivating asparagus differs from the English principally in giving each plant abundant room to develop into a large healthy specimen, in paying thoughtful attention to the plants at all times, and in planting in trenches instead of a raised bed. They do not, as is done in England, go to great expense in forming a mass of the richest soil far beneath the roots, but rather give it at the surface, and only when the roots have begun to grow strongly.--W. ROBINSON, in "Parks and Gardens of Paris."

INDEX

PAGE American varieties, 18 Barr's Mammoth, 18 Columbian Mammoth White, 19 Conover's Colossal, 19 Donald's Elmira, 19 Eclipse, 19 Hub, 20 Mammoth, 20 Moore's Cross-bred, 20 Palmetto, 20 Purple top or green top, 21

Asparagus culture in different localities, 145 in New England, 145 on Long Island, 150 in New Jersey, 152 in the South, 154 in California, 158 in France, 164

Asparagus species, 6 plumosus nanus, 6 medeoloides, 6 Sprengeri, 6 falcatus, 8 laricinus, 8 racemosus, 10 sarmentosus, 10 Broussoneti, 13 officinalis, 13 acutifolius, 16 aphyllus, 16

Botany, 4

Bunchers, 91

Bunching, 89

Canning, 112 Eastern methods, 112 Pacific coast methods, 118

Crates, 96

Cultivation, 61 the first year, 61 the second year, 64 the third and future years, 66

Cultural varieties, 17

Cutting, 83 Manner of, 84

Drying, 122

Edible species, 13

European varieties, 21 German Giant, 22 Argenteuil, 22 Yellow Burgundy, 22

Fall treatment, 68

Fertilizers and fertilizing, 72

Forcing, 100 in greenhouse, 101 in hotbeds and frames, 103 in field, 104 in Cornell asparagus house, 110

Fungus diseases, 137 Asparagus rust, 137 Asparagus leopard spot, 144

Growing asparagus without transplanting, 32

Harvesting and marketing, 83

Historical sketch, 1

Insects, 126 Common asparagus beetle, 126 Twelve-spotted asparagus beetle, 133 Spotted ladybird, 130 Asparagus miner, 135

Knives, 88

Male and female plants, 40

Marketing, 96

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