In preparing such a soil for the crop, it is well to be thorough in the matter, for the crop is to remain there indefinitely, and if success is to be expected the previous preparation should be of the most thorough character. Hence, as the soils best adapted to the growth of the plant are commonly deficient in vegetable matter, which desirable characteristic can only be found in abundance on the lands too low and moist for the asparagus crop, some preparatory culture should be used that will tend to increase the amount of organic decay in the soil.
For this purpose there is nothing better than the Southern field or cow pea. The land should be prepared by giving it a heavy dressing of acid phosphate and potash; and putting it in peas sown broadcast at the rate of a bushel or more per acre. With a heavy dressing of the mineral fertilizers the pea crop will be heavy, and should be allowed to fully ripen and decay on the land, to be plowed under, and the process repeated the following year. In the mean time the seed should be sown for the growth of the roots for setting the land.
Two crops of cow-peas allowed to die on the land and turned under will give a store of vegetable matter that would be hard to get in any other manner. While heavy manuring with stable manures is very desirable where the material can be had at a reasonable cost, the larger part, and, in fact, nearly all of the Southern asparagus, must be grown by the aid of chemical fertilizers, and the storing up of humus in the land from the decaying peas is an important factor in the placing of the soil in a condition to render the chemical fertilizers of more use, since the moisture-retaining nature of the organic matter plays an important part in the solution of matters in the soil. Aside from this, there will be a large increase in the nitrogen contents of the soil through the nitrification of this organic matter.
The second crop of peas should be plowed under in late fall when perfectly ripe and dead, so that the land can be gotten into condition for planting in early spring. The land should be thoroughly plowed, and if the clay subsoil comes near the surface it should be loosened with the subsoil plow. Furrows are then run out four and a half to five feet apart, going twice in the furrow, and then cleaning out with shovels till there is a trench a foot deep. In the bottom of this trench place a good coat of black earth from the forest, or, if well-rotted manure can be had, use that of course. Set the plants twenty inches apart in the furrow, and by means of hand-rakes pull in enough earth to barely cover the crowns.
As growth begins, the soil is to be gradually worked in around the advancing shoots till the soil is level. Now give a dressing of 1,000 pounds per acre, alongside the rows, of a mixture of 900 pounds of acid phosphate, 500 pounds of fish scrap, 200 pounds of nitrate of soda, and 400 pounds of muriate of potash, and keep the plants cultivated shallowly and flat with an ordinary cultivator till the tops are mature. An application of salt may be useful if applied in the fall in making some matters in the soil available, but salt in itself is of no use whatever to the plants. We would never apply salt in the spring, as it has a tendency to lessen nitrification and to retard the earliness of the shoots.
The annual dressing of the fertilizer named should now be increased to a ton per acre, and it should be applied not later than February 1st in each year. After the tops have been cut in the fall it is a good plan to plow furrows from each side over the rows and to plow out the middles, for the shoots will always start earlier in an elevated ridge, which warms up earlier in the spring.
The second year after planting cutting may begin, and the shoots must be cut as fast as they show, care being taken to cut down near the crown of the roots, but not to injure the other shoots that may be starting. After cutting is over—and the length of time the bed should be cut is of little importance in the South, for the price at the point where it is shipped will always tell you when to stop—the soil should be again worked down flat, and if the growth has not been as satisfactory as could be wished, a dressing of 100 pounds per acre of nitrate of soda at this time will usually pay very well. Asparagus should always be bunched in a machine made for that purpose. The bunches are packed in crates just deep enough to hold the bunches set upright on a bed of moss, and a cover of the same damp moss should be placed on top.
Where there is a demand for green asparagus the planting should be done more shallowly in a simple furrow, and the entire culture should be flat and shallow. The shoots are cut at the surface of the ground after they have attained the proper length. One thing is to be observed in either method, and this is that during the cutting season everything long enough must be cut daily, and that the little shoots be not allowed to run up and branch out. Cull the shoots after they are all out and bunch accordingly. Green shoots should be bunched by themselves and not mixed with the blanched ones. None but new, light crates should be used, for a clean and neat package will always favor its contents in the selling.
W. F. Massey.
North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station.