bed a good
body of rich earth, from which the plants feed. It appears to me this
is the secret of success.

Much depends upon how asparagus is put up for the market, making it look
attractive, in nice, clean, new crates and neatly prepared bunches, and
the stalks must be large, tender, and of good flavor. Grass from a
strong bed grown in twenty-four hours is much more tender and better in
every way than grass grown in forty-eight hours from a poor bed. We are
compelled to cut every twenty-four hours, or the asparagus would waste,
and the gathering is accomplished in about three and one-half hours each
day, early in the morning.

JOEL BORTON.

_Salem County, N. J._

ASPARAGUS IN THE SOUTH

There is no crop grown by the Southern trucker that has paid better than
asparagus year after year. With many of the other truck crops sent North
the growers have to contend with a host of planters who rush in at times
to plant certain crops like early potatoes, peas, and beans, and whose
inferior crops often glut the market and make the season unprofitable
all around. These men drop out after a season that their particular
venture did not pay, and the regular truckers, being well aware that
they would do so, always redouble their efforts the year after a bad
season with any particular crop, knowing from experience that then it
would be certain to be profitable.

But the asparagus crop is one into which the temporary growers can not
jump in and out of, for the crop requires special preparation of the
soil and patient waiting and culture pending the time for reaping a
harvest, and the men who are always ready to jump into the annual crops
always wish to realize at once, and do not generally have the capital to
put into a crop that requires several years before realizing. Hence the
asparagus crop has been left to the regular market gardeners, and has
been uniformly profitable when well managed.

As regards soil for asparagus in the South, it should be deep, light,
warm, and well drained, either naturally or artificially. The level
sandy soils that abound in all the South Atlantic Coast region, having a
compact subsoil of reddish clay under it at a moderate depth, makes the
ideal soil for the early asparagus.

In preparing such a soil for the crop, it is well to be thorough in the
matter, for the crop is to remain there indefinitely, and if success is
to be expected the previous preparation should be of the most thorough
char