gus Crate 98
Tunnel for Forcing Steam Through the Soil 107
A Long Island Asparagus Cannery 113
Sterilizing Tank 115
Sterilizing Room 117
Interior View of a California Asparagus Cannery 119
Perspective View of a California Asparagus Cannery 121
Cannery in Asparagus Fields 123
Common Asparagus Beetle 127
Asparagus Attacked by Beetles 129
Spotted Ladybird 131
Twelve-spotted Asparagus Beetle 134
Asparagus Stems Affected with Rust 138
Portion of Rusted Asparagus Stems 139
Asparagus Field on Bouldin Island 161

PREFACE

The cultivation of asparagus for home use as well as for market is so
rapidly increasing, and reliable information pertaining to it is so
frequently asked for, that a book on this subject is evidently needed.
While all works on vegetable culture treat more or less extensively on
its cultivation, so far there has been no book exclusively devoted to
asparagus published in America. Asparagus is one of the earliest, most
delicious, and surest products of the garden. Its position among other
vegetables is unique, and when once planted it lasts a lifetime; it may
be prepared for use in great variety, and may be canned or dried so as
to be available at any time of the year; and yet in the great majority
of farm gardens it is almost unknown. The principal reason for this
neglect is based upon the erroneous idea that asparagus culture requires
unusual skill, expense, and hard work. While this was true, in a
measure, under old-time rules, modern methods have so simplified every
detail connected with the cultivation of asparagus as to make it not
necessarily more expensive and laborious than that of any other garden
crop. To describe and make clear these improved methods, to demonstrate
how easily and inexpensively an asparagus bed may be had in every
garden, and how much pleasure, health, and profit may be derived from
the crop have been the principal inducements to writing this book.

In a popular treatise on so widely distributed a vegetable as asparagus,
the cultiv