Part 2 (1/2)
IV
SEED GROWING
The asparagus plant begins to produce seed when two years old. When fully developed the stalks are from five to six feet in hight, with numerous branches upon which are produced a profusion of bright scarlet berries, containing from three to six seeds each. It is not advisable, however, to harvest seed from plants less than four years old.
To save the seed the stalks are cut close to the ground as soon as the berries are ripe, which may be known by their changing color, from green to scarlet, and softening somewhat. The entire stalks are then cut off, tied in bundles, and hung up in a dry place safe from the attacks of birds, some kinds of which are very fond of this seed. After the berries are fully dried they are stripped off by hand, or thrashed upon a cloth or floor, and separated from the chaff. They are then soaked in water for a day or two to soften the skin and pulp of the berries, after which they are rubbed between the hands, or mashed with a wooden pounder, to break the outer sh.e.l.ls. The separation of the pulp from the seed is accomplished by was.h.i.+ng. When placed in water the seeds will settle with the pulp and the sh.e.l.ls will readily pa.s.s away in pouring off the water.
To clean the seeds thoroughly the was.h.i.+ng has to be repeated three or four times. It is then spread on boards or trays to dry in the sun and wind. After the first day it should be removed from the sun, but exposed to the air in a dry loft, spread thin for ten days or more. When thoroughly dried the seed is stored in linen or paper bags until needed.
When cheapness of the seed is the main consideration such promiscuous harvesting may be permissible, but when only the best is desired careful selection and preparation becomes necessary. Even if the parent plants are of choice types, not all the seeds from them are equally good. The seed, for instance, which has been gathered from a stool which has flowered side by side with an inferior kind, and at the same time, may be worthless, because it has been fertilized badly. Then the last heads generally yield nothing but doubtful seed which seldom reproduces the proper type. The seeds which grow at the end of the shoots also, as well as those produced by the upper and lower extremities of the stem, have the same defect.
In order to insure the production of the very best asparagus seed a sufficient number of pistillate or seed-bearing plants, which produce the strongest and best spears, should be selected and marked so that they may be distinguished the following spring when the shoots appear.
These clumps should be close together and near some staminate or male plants which have to be marked likewise, as without their presence fertile seed can not be produced. The number of the male to the female plants should be about one to four or five. The following spring all the sprouts of the selected male plants are allowed to grow without cutting any. On each hill of the female plants the two strongest and earliest stalks are allowed to grow, cutting the later appearing spears with the others for market or home use. Thus these early stalks of both male and female plants bloom together before any other stalks, and the blooms on the female plants will be fertilized with the pollen of the selected male plants. This last is of prime importance, for on proper fertilization depends the purity of the seed as well as the vigor of the resultant plant. Not all seed of even a good plant properly fertilized should be used for reproduction, as of the seeds gathered from any plant some will be better than others. Only the largest, plumpest, and best matured seeds should be used, for by saving these the most nearly typical plants of the sort will be most certainly produced. The selection of the best seed from typical plants is as essential to success as are good soil, thorough cultivation, and heavy manuring.
The best seeds are produced from the lower part of the stalk, hence it is well to top the plant after the seed is well set, taking off about ten inches, and to remove the berries from the upper branches, that all the strength may go to the full development of the more desirable berries. If, after this has been done, there is more than sufficient seed for the purpose desired, a second discrimination can be made between the seed of plants which produce numerous berries and those which are shy bearers, the latter being desirable, as this indicates a tendency in the plant to produce stalk rather than seed, and it is as a stalk producer that asparagus is valuable.
Harvesting, cleaning, and preserving the seed is, of course, to be done carefully; the separation of the heavy and the light seeds can be accomplished by means of water, while the larger can be selected from the resultant ma.s.s by the use of a properly meshed sieve.
V
THE RAISING OF PLANTS
Asparagus can be propagated by division of the roots, but this method gives so unsatisfactory results that it is rarely practiced. Raising the plants from seed is therefore the only method worth considering. The seed may be sown either in the fall or spring. But far more important than the time for sowing is the quality of the seed. While asparagus seed retains its vitality for two or more years, it is not safe to use seed older than one year. Fresh seed may be recognized by its glossy black color and uniform smooth surface, while old seed has a s.m.u.tty gray color and its surface is generally rough and wrinkled. Yet even with this as a guide it is not easy to distinguish bad from good seed, and still more difficult, if not impossible, is it to distinguish the seed of different varieties. It is therefore advisable to procure seed only from dealers of undoubted reliability and pay a fair price for it rather than to accept poor seed as a gift. A uniformity of the individual plants in the asparagus bed or field is a matter of prime importance; only large, fully developed seeds should be used, screening out and rejecting all small and inferior ones.
In northern lat.i.tudes spring sowing is preferable to fall sowing. The ground of the seed-bed should be well drained and fairly retentive of moisture. As soon as the soil admits of working it should be well pulverized and enriched with decomposed manure. On a small scale a spading-fork is the best implement for preparing soil for nursery rows of asparagus plants.
Straight lines should be marked about fifteen inches apart and drills made about an inch deep when the sowing is done very early in the season, and one-half to one inch deeper when the sowing is done later.
In these drills the seed should be dropped two or three inches apart.
The covering may be made with a hoe, after which the soil should be well pressed down with the foot. As the seed is slow to germinate--in from four to six weeks, according to weather conditions--it is well to sow with it a few radish seeds, which will soon appear and mark the lines of the drills, so that cultivation may begin at once. Soaking the seed in luke-warm water for twenty-four hours before sowing will hasten its germination.
The cultivation of the young plants consists in keeping the soil about them light, and free from gra.s.s and weeds. Most of this work can be done with a garden cultivator, or a hoe and rake or p.r.o.ng hoe, but some hand weeding is generally necessary in addition. Strict attention to this will save a year in time, for if the seed-bed has been neglected, it will take two years to get the plants as large as they should be in one year if they had been properly cared for. In consequence of this very frequent neglect of proper cultivation of the seed-bed, it is a common impression that the plants must be two years old before transplanting.
One pound of seed will produce about 10,000 plants, but as many of these will have to be thinned out and poor ones rejected, it is not safe to count upon more than one-half of this number of good plants. The number of plants required for an acre varies according to the manner of planting. If planted in rows three feet apart and two feet in the rows, it will require 7,260 plants per acre; if planted three by four, 3,630 per acre.
SOWING THE SEED WHERE THE PLANTS ARE TO REMAIN
Growing asparagus without transplanting is gradually finding many advocates among those who raise only the green article. It is not only a cheaper but in some respects a better method than the raising of the plants in a special seed-bed, from which they are transplanted after a year or two. ”The plan is very simple,” wrote Peter Henderson in _American Agriculturist_, ”and can be followed by any one having even a slight knowledge of farming or gardening work. In the fall prepare the land by manuring, deep plowing, and harrowing, making it as level and smooth as possible for the reception of the seed. Strike out lines three feet apart and about two to three inches deep, in which sow the seed by hand or seed-drill, as is most convenient, using from five to seven pounds of seed to each acre. After sowing, and before covering, tread down the seed in the rows with the feet evenly; then draw the back of the rake lengthwise over the rows, after which roll the whole surface.
”As soon as the land is dry and fit to work in the spring, the young plants of asparagus will start through the ground, sufficient to define the rows. At once begin to cultivate with hand or horse cultivator, and stir the ground so as to destroy the embryo weeds, breaking the soil in the rows between the plants with the fingers or hand weeder for the same purpose. This must be repeated at intervals of two or three weeks during the summer, as the success of this plan is entirely dependent on keeping down the weeds, which, if allowed to grow, would soon smother the asparagus plants, that, for the first season of their growth, are weaker than most weeds. In two or three months after starting, the asparagus will have attained ten or twelve inches in hight, and it must now be thinned out, so that the plants stand nine inches apart in the rows. By fall they will be from two to three feet in hight and, if the directions for culture have been faithfully followed, strong and vigorous.
”When the stems die down (but not before) cut them off close to the ground, and cover the lines for five or six inches on each side with two or three inches of rough manure. The following spring renew cultivation, and keep down the weeds the second year exactly as was done during the first, and so on to the spring of the fourth year, when a crop will be produced that will well reward all the labor that has been expended.