. The formerly usual practice of digging
deep trenches was not well founded--in the light of our present
experience and knowledge--and could be useful only for drainage. How
little regard was paid to the nature and requirements of the plant may
readily be perceived by reading the following directions for making an
asparagus bed, but little over half a century ago, in Bridgeman's "Young
Gardeners' Assistant":

"The ground for the asparagus bed should have a large supply of
well-rotted dung, three or four inches thick, and then be regularly
trenched two spades deep, and the dung buried equally in each trench
twelve or fifteen inches below the surface. When this trenching is done,
lay two or three inches of thoroughly rotted manure over the whole
surface, and dig the ground over again eight or ten inches deep, mixing
this top-dressing, and incorporating it well with the earth.

"In family gardens it is customary to divide the ground thus prepared
into beds, allowing four feet for every four rows of plants, with alleys
two feet and a half wide between each bed. Strain your line along the
bed six inches from the edge; then with a spade cut out a small trench
or drill close to the line, about six inches deep, making that side next
to the line nearly upright; when one trench is opened, plant that before
you open another, placing the plants upright ten or twelve inches
distance in the row, and let every row be twelve inches apart.

"The plants must not be placed flat in the bottom of the trench, but
nearly upright against the back of it, and so that the crown of the
plants must also stand upright, and two or three inches below the
surface of the ground, spreading their roots somewhat regularly against
the back of the trench, and at the same time drawing a little earth up
against them with the hand as you place them, just to fix the plants in
their due position until the row is planted; when one row is thus
placed, with a rake or hoe draw the earth into the trench over the
plants, and then proceed to open another drill or trench, as before
directed, and fill and cover it in the same manner, and so on until the
whole is planted; then let the surface of the beds be raked smooth and
clear from stones, etc.

"Some gardeners, with a view to having extra large heads, place their
plants sixteen inches apart in the rows instead of twelve, and by
planting them in the quincunx manner--that is, by commencing the second
row eight inches