Asparagus, its culture for home use and for market Part 10

After learning to control the asparagus beetle we were visited by the rust, which has proved a stubborn foe and absorbs the sap which ought to go to the growing plant. Appearing in July, 1897, the rust seriously damaged many beds in eastern Ma.s.sachusetts. Many remedies have been suggested, but so far none of them have proved perfectly satisfactory.

Growers have been advised to cut the infected tops as soon as the rust appears, but such a practice is all wrong, however good in theory. Do not cut the tops until the sap has left the stalks. This is the advice of a large number of asparagus growers and scientific men who are engaged in experimental work.

CHARLES W. PRESCOTT.

_Middles.e.x County, Ma.s.s._

ASPARAGUS ON LONG ISLAND

The cultivation of asparagus on Long Island does not differ materially, in most respects, from that practiced in other localities, other than in its extent. But there is probably more to be learned about its cultivation there than in any other section of the country, from the fact of its being grown under such changed conditions of soil. Here it can be shown that the character of soil is not, of itself, of great importance, and that on soil usually considered worthless--on land that can be bought, uncleared, at from five to ten dollars per acre--asparagus can be made as profitable a crop as on land considered cheap at one hundred dollars per acre.

Nearly every farm, the northern boundary of which is the Long Island Sound, has from two to twenty acres of soil composed very largely of fine drift sand, in all respects like quick-sand in character. This, when mixed with light loam, as is frequently the case, is the most favorable land for asparagus, and in such it is largely grown, being unsuited to potatoes or cereals, and where gra.s.ses make but a feeble struggle for existence. Within five minutes' walk to the south the soil is from a lively to a quite heavy loam, in which corn, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, and, in fact, all other crops revel. In this soil the asparagus also finds a congenial home, but no better than in the sand, in which but little else can be grown; neither can it be grown here more profitably. The expense for fertilizers is a little more on the sandy soil, but the cost in labor on the heavy soil will quite equal the cost of extra fertilizer required on the light.

Whether away from a saline atmosphere a light soil would be as favorable as a heavy one for the asparagus is a question that practical experiment only can settle. But it is an important one, as it is not generally supposed that it is possible to grow asparagus, at a profit, on such soils as are now being devoted to this crop on Long Island.

That which has been called the barren wastes, the dwarf-pine and scrub-oak lands of Suffolk County, can be made most profitable farming lands may be a surprise to many, but that such is the case does not admit of a doubt. As evidence of this, let us state what is being done along these lines. Messrs. Hudson & Sons, leading canners of asparagus, have bought a farm of 525 acres of as poor land as it is possible to find on Long Island, which they are to devote exclusively to this crop.

They have already more than fifty acres planted, and are getting the whole in readiness as rapidly as possible. This is no experiment, but simply doing on a large scale what has profitably been done on a small one.

On similar soils a low estimate of net profit is $100 per acre, and there are many instances where double this profit is made. The price paid last season by the canners was $14 per 100 bunches for first quality, and $6 per 100 for culls, or "tips," as they are usually called. With good cultivation, which means a liberal supply of plant food--and there is no crop that requires more--and the surface kept clean, free from weeds, and frequently cultivated, so that the surface is at all times loose and fine to prevent evaporation, the average yield is 2,500 bunches per acre. If we estimate the tips at 25 per cent. of the crop, the gross receipts will amount to $200 per acre.

After a given acreage is ready for cutting, which is the third year after planting, the annual cost of cultivation is not very much, if any, more than that of a crop of potatoes. It is a question whether the actual cost of growing and marketing an acre of asparagus is not less than that of an acre of potatoes. Some growers a.s.sert it is three times as much work to take care of a given acreage of asparagus as of potatoes; admitting it, the relative cost is stated above.

C. L. ALLEN.

_Na.s.sau County, N. Y._

ASPARAGUS IN NEW JERSEY

An important point in asparagus culture is to remove the top growth in the fall of the year. For this purpose I use a mowing-machine, then rake up the brush and burn it on the bed. After this I top-dress heavy with manure, leaving it lie on the land until spring.

Just as soon as the ground is fit to work at all I put on a disk-harrow, and cut it about four times each way until it is thoroughly pulverized.

Then with a smoothing-harrow I level it, and repeat the smoothing-harrow operation about once a week to keep down all weeds coming through. Then we let it go as long as we can, possibly two weeks, and at the appearance of weeds we take an ordinary sweet-potato ridger having a plow on either side and run it astride the row, covering everything in the row. Doing this on Sat.u.r.day afternoon holds the asparagus back over the following day. Then we take the middle out with a one-horse cultivator. This is done probably three times during the cutting season, which is eight weeks. With the help of one of these weeders, which we use at least once a week, we keep the bed quite clean of all weeds, and this I consider very essential. The cultivation should continue after cutting until the top growth becomes so large as to protect the ground, and then there will be but little trouble late in the season about weeds. It doesn't pay to grow them anywhere, and especially not in asparagus beds.

In planting, the ground should be well prepared and furrowed out eight inches in depth, four and one-half feet apart, and the plants two and one-half feet in the row, with a little fine manure in bottom of row; put about two inches of soil on the plants to cover. Then as the sprouts come up, keep on filling the furrows by cultivation.

I have been using some commercial manures the past two years, applying at the rate of one ton to the acre about the rows in the spring; then nearly a ton of salt to the acre applied at any time. It helps keep weeds down and gives the asparagus a good flavor. Above all, do not forget to apply the fertilizer, and Plenty, with a big "P," of it--either stable manure or commercial fertilizers. Probably there will be less weeds by using the latter, but there needs to be a great deal of the former in the beginning for several years, to give the bed a good body of rich earth, from which the plants feed. It appears to me this is the secret of success.

Much depends upon how asparagus is put up for the market, making it look attractive, in nice, clean, new crates and neatly prepared bunches, and the stalks must be large, tender, and of good flavor. Gra.s.s from a strong bed grown in twenty-four hours is much more tender and better in every way than gra.s.s grown in forty-eight hours from a poor bed. We are compelled to cut every twenty-four hours, or the asparagus would waste, and the gathering is accomplished in about three and one-half hours each day, early in the morning.

JOEL BORTON.

_Salem County, N. J._

ASPARAGUS IN THE SOUTH

There is no crop grown by the Southern trucker that has paid better than asparagus year after year. With many of the other truck crops sent North the growers have to contend with a host of planters who rush in at times to plant certain crops like early potatoes, peas, and beans, and whose inferior crops often glut the market and make the season unprofitable all around. These men drop out after a season that their particular venture did not pay, and the regular truckers, being well aware that they would do so, always redouble their efforts the year after a bad season with any particular crop, knowing from experience that then it would be certain to be profitable.

But the asparagus crop is one into which the temporary growers can not jump in and out of, for the crop requires special preparation of the soil and patient waiting and culture pending the time for reaping a harvest, and the men who are always ready to jump into the annual crops always wish to realize at once, and do not generally have the capital to put into a crop that requires several years before realizing. Hence the asparagus crop has been left to the regular market gardeners, and has been uniformly profitable when well managed.

As regards soil for asparagus in the South, it should be deep, light, warm, and well drained, either naturally or artificially. The level sandy soils that abound in all the South Atlantic Coast region, having a compact subsoil of reddish clay under it at a moderate depth, makes the ideal soil for the early asparagus.

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 sc.r.a.p, 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 s.h.i.+pped 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. Ma.s.sEY.

_North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station._

ASPARAGUS CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA

The growing of asparagus for market in California is proving to be one of the most successful of its minor industries. There is a large area in the State which is exactly suited to the production of this vegetable.

This is the region of sedimentary deposits, washed by waters that are to some extent brackish, or naturally saline. Commercial asparagus farming is limited to the reclaimed lands around the bay of San Francisco, the marshy deltas of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, and the so-called peat lands of Orange and San Luis Obispo counties.

Small beds, however, for local consumption are to be found in California as generally and frequently as they are in other States.

There is a fascination about asparagus culture that is founded on legitimate financial returns. It is practically "a sure thing" when once established, and the conditions of climate and soil are such that the work attendant on production is a minimum in proportion to the return.

No diseases of the plant have yet shown themselves in California, and it is seldom that the weather is unsteady enough to be a factor in limiting production. The deterring feature is the fact that it is not till the third year that a return can be expected on the investment. But as other crops, such as potatoes and beans, can be grown between the rows in the interim, the time of waiting is not so entirely an unproductive one as might at first be supposed.

The methods of preparing, planting, and working are practically the same in all sections of California. The proposed beds are plowed as deeply as possible and thoroughly fertilized. All of the soils appropriate for commercial asparagus farming are so light that deep cultivation is a comparatively easy matter. Furrows for planting are then run and made double depth. Some growers think it worth while to distribute fertilizer along these furrows and then turn for a third time, so as to enrich the ground immediately below the roots to be set out. These furrows are run from four to six feet apart, the latter being considered the better usage. In them one-year-old plants are then set by hand at distances varying from eighteen inches to three feet. The former distance is preferred by the Italian growers on Bay Farm Island in San Francis...o...b..y, but the Southern growers and those along the Sacramento River lean to the greater distance. The only difference seems to be whether there will be sufficient nutriment in the soil to force the plant into giving as large and tender shoots as where each plant is allowed a larger area. The plants are set with the crowns about four inches below the surface and the roots are carefully spread out before covering. Planting is done any time from November to April, but the middle of February is perhaps the most common time.

The culture for the first year consists in keeping the soil loose and free from weeds. Ordinarily other crops are grown between the rows, and their cultivation serves to keep the ground in proper condition. The asparagus is allowed to come up, feather, and seed without interference, no cutting being done the first year. Care, however, is taken to cut off the tops close to the ground in the fall before the seed begins to drop--the volunteer asparagus being the worst enemy in culture with which the grower has to deal. About the beginning of the rainy season a heavy coating of manure is placed over the beds and left to be leeched in by the rains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48--VIEW OF ASPARAGUS FIELD ON BOULDIN ISLAND, CALIFORNIA]

The second year some growers cut more or less for market, but the bed is then longer in coming to its full strength and will not give so large a product the following years. There is a variation in the spring working, according to the nature of the land. Where the soil has a tendency to be cold, the first plowing is away from the rows, so as to let the sun more quickly down to the starting plants. Where the soil is light, or the season forward, this plowing is omitted. The latter plowings are toward the rows, the effort being by ridging to give a long blanched surface to the shoots. For the canneries where nothing but the white product is put up, the shoots are cut the instant they show their tips above the surface. The local market shows a preference for the greener shoot, and so before cutting it is allowed to stretch itself up into the light. The third year regular cutting begins, and from that time forward the beds increase in the quant.i.ty and quality of the product for the next fifteen years.

The methods of marketing are somewhat different from those practiced in the East. Little or none of the asparagus is bunched. It is packed loose in boxes holding from forty to fifty pounds, and the loose product is retailed to the consumer by the pound. The first boxes begin to go out by the beginning of February, though small quant.i.ties can be seen in market as early as January 15th. The canning contracts run, as a rule, from March 1st to June 15th. After that the weather is so dry that the yield stops unless the beds are irrigated. In most sections, however, irrigation is not necessary up to this time.

A notable exception to this is Bouldin Island, in the San Joaquin River. This is reclaimed land, and lies some six or eight feet below the surface of the water. The soil is river silt on a peat stratum thirty feet deep. The top is so fine and friable that it does not, in spite of the surrounding river, hold enough moisture to keep the vegetation alive during the hot spring months. A north wind in May would lift up the whole surface of the island and carry it away in dust. It is an easy matter, however, to let in water through the dikes, and this is done in sufficient quant.i.ties to keep the soil in place.

The question of profit in asparagus growing is one that can only be treated in a relative way. The industry is as yet so new, and instances of phenomenal returns from small holdings are so many, that it is hard to arrive at what might be called a commercial ratio of gain. It is safe to say, however, that with ordinary care there has never been an actual loss with asparagus culture in California. A low estimate of profit is probably $50 per acre. The cost of preparation and planting where diking has not been necessary has seldom been more than $100 per acre. The gross returns taken from recent years' reports vary from $100 to $200 per acre, so that it can readily be seen that the return to the asparagus farmer is very fair. Most of the farms in California are in rented land. The Bay Farm Island people pay a ground rent of $50 per acre. On Bouldin Island the rental is on a basis of 40 per cent. of the net proceeds. In Fig. 48 is presented a view of a fully established asparagus field on Bouldin Island.