Asparagus, its culture for home use and for market.

by F. M. Hexamer.

PREFACE

The cultivation of asparagus for home use as well as for market is so rapidly increasing, and reliable information pertaining to it is so frequently asked for, that a book on this subject is evidently needed.

While all works on vegetable culture treat more or less extensively on its cultivation, so far there has been no book exclusively devoted to asparagus published in America. Asparagus is one of the earliest, most delicious, and surest products of the garden. Its position among other vegetables is unique, and when once planted it lasts a lifetime; it may be prepared for use in great variety, and may be canned or dried so as to be available at any time of the year; and yet in the great majority of farm gardens it is almost unknown. The princ.i.p.al reason for this neglect is based upon the erroneous idea that asparagus culture requires unusual skill, expense, and hard work. While this was true, in a measure, under old-time rules, modern methods have so simplified every detail connected with the cultivation of asparagus as to make it not necessarily more expensive and laborious than that of any other garden crop. To describe and make clear these improved methods, to demonstrate how easily and inexpensively an asparagus bed may be had in every garden, and how much pleasure, health, and profit may be derived from the crop have been the princ.i.p.al inducements to writing this book.

In a popular treatise on so widely distributed a vegetable as asparagus, the cultivation of which had been brought to a high state of development many centuries before the Christian era, there is little opportunity for originality. All that the author has endeavored in this little volume has been to collect, arrange, cla.s.sify, and systematize all obtainable facts, compare them with his own many years' experience in asparagus culture, and present his inferences in a plain and popular manner. Free use has been made of all available literature, especially helpful among which has been the Farmers' Bulletin No. 61 of the United States Department of Agriculture, by R. B. Handy; also bulletins of the Missouri, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Ma.s.sachusetts, and South Carolina and other experiment stations; the files of _American Agriculturist; Gardener's Chronicle_, from which descriptions of several ornamental species by William Watson were condensed; Thome's "Flora von Deutschland;" "Eintraegliche Spargelzucht," von Franz Goeschke; "Braunschweiger Spargelbuch," von Dr. Ed. Brinckmeier; "Parks and Gardens of Paris," by William Robinson; "Asparagus Culture," by James Barnes and William Robinson; "Les Plantes Potageres," by Vilmorin-Andrieux; the works of Peter Henderson, Thomas Bridgeman, J. C. Loudon, and others.

The author desires to express his grateful acknowledgments to Mr.

Herbert Myrick, editor-in-chief of _American Agriculturist_ and allied publications, for critically reading the whole ma.n.u.script; to Prof. W.

G. Johnson, Charles V. Mapes, C. L. Allen, A. D. McNair, Superintendent Southern Pines Experimental Farm; Prof. W. F. Ma.s.sey, Robert W. Nix, Robert Hickmott, Charles W. Prescott, Joel Borton, and all others who by their help, suggestions, and advice have aided him in the preparation of this work.

F. M. HEXAMER.

_New York, 1901._

ASPARAGUS

I

HISTORICAL SKETCH

The word "asparagus" is said to be of Persian origin. In middle Latin it appears as _sparagus_; Italian, _sparajio_; old French, _esperaje_; old English, _sperage_, _sparage_, _sperach_. The middle Latin form, _sparagus_, was in English changed into _sparagra.s.s_, _sparrow-gra.s.s_, and sometimes simply _gra.s.s_, terms which were until recently in good literary use. In modern French it is _asperge_; German, _spargel_; Dutch, _aspergie_; Spanish, _esperrago_.

The original habitat of the edible asparagus is not positively known, as it is now found naturalized throughout Europe, as well as in nearly all parts of the civilized world. How long the plant was used as a vegetable or as a medicine is likewise uncertain, but that it was known and highly prized by the Romans at least two centuries before the Christian era is historically recorded. According to Pliny, the Romans were already aware of the difference in quality, that grown near Ravenna being considered best, and was so large that three spears weighed one pound. The elder Cato has treated the subject with still greater care. He advises the sowing of the seed of asparagus in the beds of vine-dressers' reeds, which are cultivated in Italy for the support of the vines, and that they should be burned in the spring of the third year, as the ashes would act as a manure to the future crop. He also recommends that the plants be renewed after eight or nine years.

The usual method of preparing asparagus pursued by the Roman cooks was to select the finest sprouts and to dry them. When wanted for the table they were put in hot water and cooked a few minutes. To this practice is owing one of Emperor Augustus's favorite sayings: "_Citius quam asparagi coquentur_" (Do it quicker than you can cook asparagus).

While the indigenous asparagus has been used from time immemorial as a medicine by Gauls, Germans, and Britons, its cultivation and use as a vegetable was only made known to the people by the invading Roman armies. But in the early part of the sixteenth century it was mentioned among the cultivated garden vegetables, and Leonard Meager, in his "English Gardener," published in 1683, informs us that in his time the London market was well supplied with "forced" asparagus.

The medicinal virtues formerly attributed to asparagus comprise a wide range. The roots, sprouts, and seeds were used as medicine. The fresh roots are diuretic, perhaps owing to the immediate crystalizable principle, "asparagine," which is said to be sedative in the dose of a few grains. A syrup made of the young shoots and an extract of the roots has been recommended as a sedative in heart affections, and the _species diuretica_--a mixture of asparagus, celery, parsley, holly, and sweet fennel--was a favorite preparation for use in dropsy and gravel. Among the Greeks and Romans it was one of the oldest and most valued medicines, and to which most absurd virtues were attributed. It was believed that if a person anointed himself with a liniment made of asparagus and oil the bees would not approach or sting him. It was also believed that if the root be put on a tooth which aches violently it causes it to come out without pain. The therapeutic virtues of asparagus seem to have been held in almost as high esteem by the ancients as those of ginseng are esteemed by the Chinese to this day.

II

BOTANY

The genus Asparagus belongs to the Lily Family. It comprises about one hundred and fifty species, and these are spread through the temperate and tropical regions of the Old World. One-half of these species are indigenous to South Africa, and it is from this region that the most ornamental of the greenhouse species have been obtained.

All the species are perennial, with generally fleshy roots or tubers.

The stems are annual in some, perennial in others, most of them being spiny, climbing shrubs, growing to a length of from five to twenty or even fifty feet. The true leaves are usually changed into spines, which are situated at the base of the branches and are often stout and woody.

The false leaves, termed cladodia, are the linear or hair-like organs which are popularly called leaves; they are in reality modified branches. These cladodia are nearly always arranged in cl.u.s.ters at intervals along the branches, and the flowers generally spring from their axils. They usually fall off the hardy species in winter, and they are easily affected by unfavorable conditions in all the species. Most of them flower and fruit freely under cultivation, so that seeds are available for propagation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2--ASPARAGUS PLUMOSUS Na.n.u.s]

ORNAMENTAL SPECIES

_A. medeoloides_ (_Myrsiphyllum asparagoides_), popularly known as Smilax.--For many years this has been, and is yet, one of the most commonly grown and the most serviceable of the plants used by florists as "green." It is readily grown from seed in the greenhouse. While a few other species of asparagus have been close rivals, it is yet unexcelled for many purposes of floral decorations.

_A. plumosus_ (the plumy asparagus).--A very graceful climbing plant which for finer decoration has largely taken the place of smilax, its foliage being finer than that of the most delicate ferns, and will last for weeks after being cut. The whole plant is of a bright, cheerful green. Its branches spread horizontally, and branch again in such a manner as to form a flat, frond-like arrangement, the leaves being very numerous, in cl.u.s.ters of about a dozen, bright green, and one-half inch long. A native of South Africa, where it climbs over bushes and branches in moist situations. There are several named varieties of this, most of which have originated in gardens. The most distinct are _A. tenuissimus_ and _A. plumosus na.n.u.s_, the fern-like appearance of which is seen in Fig. 2.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3--ASPARAGUS SPRENGERI]

_A. Sprengeri._--This is one of the best and most attractive house plants of recent introduction. It is of graceful form and habit when grown as a pot plant, but it is equally well suited for planting in hanging baskets. Its fronds are frequently four feet long, of a rich shade of green, and very useful for cutting, retaining their freshness for weeks after being cut. As a house plant it has exceeded expectations, as it stands dry atmosphere better than the older kinds of ornamental asparagus, and is not particular as to any special position.

It delights in a well-enriched soil, rather light in composition, with plenty of drainage, and grows very rapidly. It is decidedly pretty when in bloom, its little flowers being pure white on short racemes, and the anthers are of a bright orange color. Fig. 3 gives a good idea of its graceful habit.

_A. falcatus._--One of the most striking twining plants for a large, temperate house. At the Kew Gardens, in London, England, is an enormous specimen of this species which is trained against the northern staircase, where it has formed a perfect thicket two yards through and twenty-five feet high, of long, rope-like, intertwining, spinous, fawn-colored stems, some of them fully fifty feet long, and clothed with wiry, woody branches, bearing whorls of leaves from two to three inches long and nearly one-fourth of an inch wide, falcate and bright green.

The young stems are thick and succulent and gray-green, mottled with brown. For large conservatories, and particularly in moist, shady corners, where ordinary climbers will not thrive, this is an ideal plant. It is a native of the tropics of Asia and Africa, as well as the Cape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4--ASPARAGUS LARICINUS]

_A. laricinus_ (Fig. 4).--This handsome species has been in the Kew collection at least twenty years. It is grown in the succulent house, where, from a vigorous root system, it sends up annual stout succulent shoots, which grow to a length of about twelve feet, and when fully developed are decidedly ornamental. The stems are perennial, terete, dark brown, woody, one-half inch in diameter at the base, very spinous, freely branched, and branches zigzag and gray, the leaves in cl.u.s.ters one-fourth inch apart, hair-like, one and one-half inches long, bright green, persistent. Flowers axillary, many in a cl.u.s.ter, small, campanulate, white. Berries globose, dull red, one seeded, one-sixth of an inch in diameter. Common in various parts of South Africa. It is an excellent pillar plant.

_A. racemosus._--This species is spread throughout the tropics of Africa and Asia; the Cape form of it is represented at Kew under the name of variety _tetragonus_, as shown in Fig. 5. This is a vigorous grower, with woody stems nine feet long, p.r.i.c.kly at the base, fawn colored, freely branching above, each branch having at its base a sharp spine three-quarters of an inch long. The leaves are of a gray-green hue, four-angled, one-quarter of an inch long. Flowers in racemes two inches long, whitish, very fragrant. Berry red, globose, pulpy, one-seeded. An excellent climber for rafters, pillars, etc., growing vigorously under ordinary treatment. Its root system is a dense ma.s.s of tubers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5--ASPARAGUS RACEMOSUS, VAR. TETRAGONUS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6--ASPARAGUS SARMENTOSUS]

_A. sarmentosus_ (Fig. 6).--An elegant evergreen species from South Africa, where it grows freely in moist situations, forming dense, brushy stems with short p.r.i.c.kles, and studded with white, starry, fragrant flowers, which are followed with bright scarlet, pea-like berries; has stems four feet high, freely branched and clothed with dark green flat leaves three inches long. It is also grown in pots and baskets for the Cape-house, and when in flower it is greatly admired.

_A. Broussoneti._--A beautiful hardy perennial climber from the Canary Islands, growing ten feet high; feathery foliage and scarlet berries. In the autumn this is very ornamental.

Among the most noteworthy of other ornamental species are: _A.

Aethiopicus_, _Africa.n.u.s_, _Asiaticus_, _Cooperi_, _crispus_, _declinatus_, _dec.u.mbens_, _lucidus_, _retrofractus_, _scandens_, _tenuifolius_, _trichophyllus_, _umbellatus_, _verticillatus_, _virgatus_, etc., etc.

EDIBLE SPECIES

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7--ASPARAGUS CROWN, ROOTS, BUDS, AND SPEAR]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8--ASPARAGUS STEM, LEAVES, FLOWERS, AND BERRIES]

_Asparagus officinalis._--While the young sprouts of a few other species may be used as food, this is the only one which has found a permanent place in cultivation. It is a branching, herbaceous plant, reaching a hight of from three to seven feet; the filiform branchlets, three to seven inches long, less than one-quarter inch thick, are mostly cl.u.s.tered in the axils of minute scales. The rootstock, or "crown," is perennial, and makes a new growth each year of from one to three inches, extending horizontally, and generally in a straight line. It may propagate from both ends, or from only one, but in either case the older part of root stalk becomes unproductive and finally dies. Fig. 7 shows the new portion of the rootstock crowned with buds for the production of new shoots, while the older portion bears the scars and dead scales of previous growths. From the sides and the lower part of the rootstock numerous cylindrical, fleshy roots start and extend several feet horizontally, but do not penetrate the soil deeply. In the course of time the older roots become hollow and inactive without becoming detached from the rootstock. The young root formation always takes place a little above the old roots, which circ.u.mstance explains why the asparagus plants gradually rise above the original level, thus necessitating the annual hilling up or the covering of the crowns with additional soil.