The Home Acre

by Edward Payson Roe

We must again dwell on the principles already emphasized, that soils must be treated according to their nature. If too damp, they must be drained; if of the fortunate quality of a sandy loam resting on a clay subsoil, they can be abundantly deepened and enriched from the start, if of a heavy clay, inclined to be cold and wet in spring, and to bake and crack in summer, skill should aim to lighten it and remove its inertia; finally, as we have shown, a light, porous soil should be treated like a spendthrift. All soils, except the last-named, are much the better for being enriched and deeply plowed or forked in October or November. This exposes the mould to the sweetening and mechanical action of frost, and the fertilizers incorporated with it are gradually transformed into just that condition of plant food which the rootlets take up with the greatest ease and rapidity. A light soil, on the contrary, should not be worked in autumn, but be left intact after the crops are taken from it.

In one respect a light soil and a stiff, heavy one should be treated in the same way, but for different reasons. In the first instance, fertilizers should be applied in moderation to the surface, and rains and the cultivation of the growing crops depended upon to carry the richness downward to the roots. The porous nature of the earth must ever be borne in mind; fertilizers pass through it and disappear, and therefore are applied to the surface, to delay this process and enable the roots to obtain as much nutriment as possible during the passage. Equal and even greater advantages are secured by a top-dressing of barnyard manures and composts to the heaviest of clay. The surface of such soils, left to Nature, becomes in hot, dry weather like pottery, baking and cracking, shielding from dew and shower, and preventing all circulation of air about the roots. A top-dressing prevents all this, keeps the surface open and mellow, and supplies not only fertility, but the mechanical conditions that are essential.

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.

At the same time it is proper that some suggestions should follow this brief record. The asparagus bed should be in well-drained soil; for while the plant will grow on wet land, it will start late, and our aim is to have it early.

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.