Again, with asparagus as with nearly everything else, the deeper and richer the soil, the larger and more luxuriant the crop.  Listen to Thompson, the great English gardener:  “If the ground has been drained, trenched, or made good to the depth of three feet, as directed for the kitchen-garden generally [!], that depth will suffice for the growth of asparagus.”  We should think so; yet I am fast reaching the conclusion that under most circumstances it would in the end repay us to secure that depth of rich soil throughout our gardens, not only for asparagus, but for everything else.  Few of the hasty, slipshod gardeners of America have any idea of the results secured by extending root pasturage to the depth of three feet instead of six or seven inches; soil thus prepared would defy flood and drought, and everything planted therein would attain almost perfection, asparagus included.  But who has not seen little gardens by the roadside in which all the esculents seemed growing together much as they would be blended in the pot thereafter?  Yet from such patches, half snatched from barrenness, many a hearty, wholesome dinner results.  Let us have a garden at once, then improve it indefinitely.

I will give in brief just what is essential to secure a good and lasting asparagus bed.  We can if we choose grow our own plants, and thus be sure of good ones.  The seed can be sown in late October or early spring on light, rich soil in rows eighteen inches apart.  An ounce of seed will sow fifty feet of drill.  If the soil is light, cover the seed one inch deep; if heavy, half an inch; pack the ground lightly, and cover the drill with a good dusting of that fine compost we spoke of, or any fine manure.  This gives the young plants a good send-off.  By the use of the hoe and hand-weeding keep them scrupulously clean during the growing season, and when the tops are killed by frost mow them off.  I should advise sowing two or three seeds to the inch, and then when the plants are three inches high, thinning them out so that they stand four inches apart.  You thus insure almost the certainty of good strong plants by autumn; for plants raised as directed are ready to be set out after one season’s growth, and by most gardeners are preferred.

In most instances good plants can be bought for a small sum from nurserymen, who usually offer for sale those that are two years old.  Strong one-year-olds are just as good, but under ordinary culture are rarely large enough until two years of age.  I would not set out three-year-old plants, for they are apt to be stunted and enfeebled.  You can easily calculate how many plants you require by remembering that the rows are to be three feet apart, and the plants one foot apart in the row.

Now, whether you have raised the plants yourself, or have bought them, you are ready to put them where they will grow, and yield to the end of your life probably.  Again I substantiate my position by quoting from the well-known gardener and writer, Mr. Joseph Harris:  “The old directions for planting an asparagus bed were well calculated to deter any one from making the attempt.  I can recollect the first I made.  The labor and manure must have cost at the rate of a thousand dollars an acre, and, after all was done, no better results were obtained than we now secure at one-tenth of the expense.”