eep the weeds out.

A Member: Your manure would be all gone then?

Mr. Record: I know there was a man right adjoining me who had an
asparagus bed, and he used a lot of rotten manure the summer before, and
he got very little asparagus that was marketable. I asked him what the
trouble was, and he said he didn't know. This year he had a good crop. I
can't say it was the manure that did that, only it looks that way.

A Member: How would you start a new planting?

Mr. Record: I would plow my ground thoroughly and get it in good shape.

A Member: Wouldn't fertilize the first season?

Mr. Record: I would. I would fertilize my asparagus ground two years.

A Member: I mean in preparing your patch for the new planting?

Mr. Record: I would first plow and harrow and then fertilize. Plow both
ways from fourteen to sixteen inches deep and with a fine cultivator
loosen up the bottom of furrow and put in the plants and cover with a
little earth. Then with the horse keep filling in the furrow. I saw this
summer several men with hoes working. That is all right, but it takes a
long time, especially with the proposition we are up against about hired
help. I can do it just as well with the horse and four times as fast.
The second year you can harrow it any way you want to.

A Member: Common corn land, is that fit for raising asparagus?

Mr. Record: Yes, sir, asparagus will grow on poor ground better than
many other vegetables will.

A Member: Will it improve that land by fertilizing with top dressing?

Mr. Record: I think so.

A Member: The heavy land I suppose wouldn't be good for it?

Mr. Record: They raise good asparagus on clay land, but I don't think it
will grow as good as on sandy soil. It is not quite so warm; it packs
harder and I think more liable to grow crooked.

A Member: I was called out to see a man's asparagus bed. He asked me
what kind of ground I thought it must be, and I said a light soil. This
man had a heavy clay, and it rained on it, and then the sun came out
very hot and the top cooked, and when the little shoots were to come up
they turned back. That ground wasn't good for asparagus.

Mr. Record: It should have been harrowed well after that rain.

A Member: You see he couldn't get in there.

A Member: What fertilizer is good? Is bone meal good?

Mr. Record: Any commercial fertilizer is good, I think. Bone meal is
good.

Mr. Crawford: Can you raise asparagus successfully in the shade or a
parti