year.

[Illustration: FIG. 14--HORIZONTAL DEVELOPMENT OF A FOUR-YEAR-OLD
ASPARAGUS ROOT]

In most asparagus sections special customs prevail, and even in these
different growers have their individual preferences; but all agree that
asparagus should never be planted closer than two feet in rows three
feet apart. For the home garden there is no better plan than to plant
but a single row, with the plants two or three feet apart, along the
edge or border of the ground, but not nearer than four or five feet to
other plants, and in case of grape-vines even more room should be given.
Here they require but little care, and the plants have an unlimited
space for the extension of their roots in search of moisture and food.
Asparagus needs considerable water, and an acre of land will hold so
much water and no more. The more plants there are on an acre the less
water there will be for each plant, and what is true of water is also
true of plant food.

In field culture the distance adopted by asparagus growers varies from 3
x 3 feet (4,840 plants per acre); 3 x 4 feet (3,640 plants per acre); 4
x 4 feet (2,722 plants per acre); 4 x 5 feet (2,178 plants per acre); 5
x 6 feet (1,452 plants per acre); 6 x 6 feet (1,210 plants per acre),
and even more. If the idea is to have the plants so far apart that their
roots can not interlace, twenty feet each way would not be too
extravagant a distance, under favorable conditions, as will readily
become apparent by a glance at Fig. 14. This illustration is an exact
reproduction of the root system of an asparagus plant four years from
the seed. The roots spread out upon a level floor measured thirteen feet
from tip to tip, the single roots averaging the thickness of a lead
pencil. This root grew in Madison County, Ill., and was washed out of
the ground--without having any of its roots torn--by the unusually heavy
spring rains which caused the Piasa River to overflow its banks and sent
a current rushing through the asparagus field in which it grew. If the
plant had remained in its position a few years longer its roots would
probably have extended ten feet in each direction.

From this it does not follow, however, that asparagus should be planted
twenty or even ten feet apart to produce the largest returns, but it
plainly shows why the roots should not be planted as closely together
as was customary in former years; and it obviously demonstrates that
when land is cheap and manure and labor high