Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-05-26
VERMONT wATCHMAN WEDNESDAY, MAY &C. is

as good. The way is this-make your land
as rich as you please, remembering that the
more manure you put on the bigger stalks Of
asparagus and the more Of them you will get.
Plow the piece deeply, say ten or twelve
inches, and crossplow so as to mix the ma
nure well with the soil. Then furrow out
as for potatoes, say six or eight inches deep.
Have the burrows from three to four feet
asunder. Set the plants, which should be
one year old from the seed (you may grow
them easily, planting the seed just as you do
beet seed), one in place, and from one to
four feet apart. If you are after big aspar-
agus, give it plenty of room both ways. If
the bed is to be a large one, to grow aspar-
agus for large family or for market, and
you have plenty of land, let the hills be
three or four feet apart each way, but If you
want to have only small bed, good success
will attend planting even as near as two and
one half feet by one foot. One hundred plants
will supply small family with daily mess
The plants should be set about six inches
below the surface. After planting nothing
remains but to keep the bed clear of weeds,
and well enriched, and enjoy its products as
long as you live. Heavy dressings of waste
salt will help to keep the weeds down, and
probably benefits the asparagus, which is
sea-shore plant. But it grows well without
salt. We see Mr.. Mehan of the Gardeners
Monthly is quoted as saying there are no va
rieties of asparagus, and cannot be, because
the plant is diecious, |. e., bears its male
and female flowers on different plants. We
think this must be one of Mr.. Mehans va
carries Gf he is correctly quoted), for every
bed of asparagus seedlings shows variations
Ill the plants quite sufficient to constitute
varieties, if we can call the different garden
sorts of beets, carrots, peas, etc., varieties.
There will be light green, dark green and
purple stems, as well as variations in form and
habit of growth. Whether these divergen-
GIGS have been made permanent in any given
case we are not sure. The so-called Como
veris colossal asparagus certainly does not
connie true from seed, or differ much from
the Ordinary sort. But we understand that
John B. Moore of Concord, Massachusetts,
has really established distinct and perma-
nent variety by careful selections. We see
no rel ison in the fact of the diecious habit
u tYe asparagus why there may not be va,
cities. There are certainly varieties of
other diecious plants
Since writing the above we have seen Mr..
Mehan's "original utterance" on this sub
ject, and find that he was misquoted. What
he said was "no one can produce a new
variety in the same sense that one produces
an apple or pear" on account of the dice
cious character of the inhorescence. He
adds "The only way in which asparagus
could be improved would be by always Sc
letting the earliest or greenest, or, purpest
or largest, and saving seeds from them
through several generations. We might
then get improved breeds, just as we have
improved breeds of cattle; but no one has SO
far attempted to improve asparagus in this
way, and so all the talk about a new vari-
ETY. of asparagus is mere moonshine." We
think that this is the way Mr.. Moore pro-
duced his new asparagus, but probably Mr.
Mehan had not heard of it. When more
than one new variety has been thus thor
oughly established, we do not see how the
diecious character of the species can pre-
vent the crossing of these varieties for the
production of other varieties. The essence
of crossing consists in applying pollen from
one variety to the stigmas of another vari
ETY., and this is as easily done with diecous
or monecious plants as with those having
perfect flowers.