two feet above my head and
covered all along with the most magnificent roses I have ever had in my
garden. The same thing I have done with the General Jacquiminot.

Asparagus by the Acre.

E. W. RECORD, MARKET GARDENER, BROOKLYN CENTER.

First I am careful about selecting seed of a good variety. My choice is
Palmetto, because it is hardy and the best seller on our market. In
starting a bed I sow my seed as early as possible in the spring in rows
about eighteen inches apart, and when the plants are well up I thin out
to about an inch, so the roots will not be so hard to separate when
ready to transplant. My experience has been that plants two years old
are more easily handled than those one or three, because the one year
plants are not matured enough, while the roots of the three year old
have become too matured, and when separated too many of the roots are
broken off.

In preparing the ground for asparagus I plow and then harrow it and mark
it off so the rows will be five feet apart. I plow a furrow from
fourteen to sixteen inches deep, throwing the dirt both ways. Then with
my cultivator I loosen up the bottom of the furrow. I place the plants
in the furrow about eighteen inches apart, being careful to spread the
roots evenly over the bottom of the furrow, putting a little dirt over
them to hold them in place. With my cultivator I keep filling in the
furrow, at the same time plowing out the middle to keep down the weeds.

In fertilizing a bed of asparagus my experience has been that the best
way is to plow a furrow between the rows, filling it with barnyard
manure, then covering this with earth. Spreading the manure broadcast
makes too many of the stalks grow crooked.

I never cut my asparagus for market until the third year, and then only
for a short time. By the fifth year the bed is strong enough to cut the
whole season. When the season is over I cultivate often enough to keep
down the weeds. I never cut the old stalks off until spring, because
after the first freeze the stalks are hollow, and this would allow the
frost to run down into the roots.

Annual Report, 1915, Vice-President, Second Congressional District.

JOHN BISBEE, MADELIA.

A summer remarkable in many respects has passed. Many of our people have
labored hard, and the rewards of that labor have been meager and
unsatisfactory. Horticulture with all the other labors on the land has
been rewarded like the other cultivators of th