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Page 49
If we are now ready to begin, let us begin right. I have not much
sympathy with finical, fussy gardening. One of the chief
fascinations of gardening is the endless field it affords for
skilful sleight of hand, short-cuts, unconventional methods, and
experiments. The true gardener soon ceases to be a man of rules,
and becomes one of strategy, of expedients. He is prompt to act at
the right moment. Like the artist, he is ever seeking and acting
upon hints from Nature. The man of rules says the first of July is
the time to set out winter cabbage; and out the plants go, though
the sky be brazen, and the mercury in the nineties. The gardener
has his plants ready, and for a few days watches the sky. At last
he perceives that rain is coming; then he sets out his plants, and
Nature's watering starts them, unwilted, on their new growth.
At the same time I protest against careless, slovenly gardening--
ground imperfectly prepared, crooked rows, seed half covered, or
covered so deeply that the germs are discouraged long before they
reach light. One of the best aids to success is a small compost-
heap composed equally of manure from the horse-stable, the cow-
stable, and of leaves. This should be allowed to stand so long,
and be cut down and turned so often, that it becomes like a fine
black powder, and is much the better for being kept under shelter
from sun and rain.
All who hope to have a permanent garden will naturally think first
of asparagus--one of the vegetables that have bee a longest in
cultivation, and one which is justly among the most valued. It was
cultivated hundreds of years before the Christian era, and is to-
day growing in popular esteem among civilized peoples.
In the matter of preparation I shall take issue with many of the
authorities. I have read and known of instances wherein
extraordinary expense and pains have been bestowed upon the
asparagus-bed. The soil has been dug out to the depth of two or
more feet, the bottom paved, and the homely, hardy roots,
accustomed to roughing it the world over, set out and tended with
a care which, if given to a potato, would make it open its eyes.
There are few more hardy or widely distributed species of
vegetables than asparagus. It is "a native of the sea-coasts of
various countries of Europe and Asia." According to Loudon, it is
abundant on the sandy steppes in the interior of Russia. In
Southern Russia and Poland the horses and cows feed upon it. It
grows freely in the fens of Lincolnshire, and is indigenous to
Cornwall. On the borders of the Euphrates the shoots are so
extraordinarily large and vigorous that Thompson thinks it would
be to the advantage of gardeners to import roots from that region.
These facts may indicate that too much stress may have been laid
on its character as a marine plant. Yet it is true that it grows
naturally on the coast of Holland, in the sandy valleys and on the
downs, while off Lizard Point it flourishes naturally on an island
where, in gales, the sea breaks over the roots. In this country
also it has escaped cultivation, and is establishing itself along
our coasts, The truth is that it is a plant endowed with a
remarkable power of adaptation to all soils and climates, and does
not need the extravagant petting often given it. On different
portions of my place chance seeds have fallen, and annually
produce almost as fine heads as are cut from the garden. Nature
therefore teaches what experience verifies--that asparagus is one
of the most easily grown and inexpensive vegetables of the garden.
From two small beds we have raised during the past eight years
twice as much as we could use, and at the cost of very little
trouble either in planting or cultivation.
In my effort to show, from the hardy nature of the asparagus
plant, that extravagant preparation is unnecessary, let no one
conclude that I am opposed to a good, thorough preparation that
accords with common-sense. It is not for one year's crop that you
are preparing, but for a vegetable that should be productive on
the same ground thirty or forty years. What I said of strawberries
applies here. A fair yield of fruit may be expected from plants
set out on ordinary corn-ground, but more than double the crop
would be secured from ground generously prepared.
When I first came to Cornwall, about twelve years ago, I
determined to have an asparagus bed as soon as possible. I
selected a plot eighty feet long by thirty wide, of sandy loam,
sloping to the southwest. It had been used as a garden before, but
was greatly impoverished. I gave it a good top-dressing of
barnyard manure in the autumn, and plowed it deeply; another top-
dressing of fine yard manure and a deep forking in the early
spring. Then, raking the surface smooth, I set a line along its
length on one side. A man took a spade, sunk its length in the
soil, and pushed it forward strongly. This action made an almost
perpendicular wedge-shaped aperture just back of the spade. The
asparagus plant, with its roots spread out fan-shape, was sunk in
this opening to a depth that left the crown of the plant between
three and four inches below the surface. Then the spade was drawn
out, and the soil left to fall over the crown of the plant.
Rapidly repeating this simple process, the whole plot was soon set
out. The entire bed was then raked smooth. The rows were three
feet apart, and plants one foot apart in the row. A similar plot
could scarcely have been planted with potatoes more quickly or at
less expense, and a good crop of potatoes could not have been
raised on that poor land with less preparation. A few years later
I made another and smaller bed in the same way. The results have
been entirely satisfactory. I secured my object, and had plenty of
asparagus at slight cost, and have also sold and given away large
quantities. A bit of experience is often worth much more than
theory.
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