From two small beds we have raised during the past eight years
twice as much as we could use, and at the cost of very little
trouble either in planting or cultivation.
In my effort to show, from the hardy nature of the asparagus
plant, that extravagant preparation is unnecessary, let no one
conclude that I am opposed to a good, thorough preparation that
accords with common-sense. It is not for one year's crop that you
are preparing, but for a vegetable that should be productive on
the same ground thirty or forty years. What I said of strawberries
applies here. A fair yield of fruit may be expected from plants
set out on ordinary corn-ground, but more than double the crop
would be secured from ground generously prepared.
When I first came to Cornwall, about twelve years ago, I
determined to have an asparagus bed as soon as possible. I
selected a plot eighty feet long by thirty wide, of sandy loam,
sloping to the southwest. It had been used as a garden before, but
was greatly impoverished. I gave it a good top-dressing of
barnyard manure in the autumn, and plowed it deeply; another top-
dressing of fine yard manure and a deep forking in the early
spring. Then, raking the surface smooth, I set a line along its
length on one side. A man took a spade, sunk its length in the
soil, and pushed it forward strongly.
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