and free access to the beds for cutting. An advantage in sowing the seed is that the crowns are naturally established at a proper depth. In planting the crowns obtained from the nursery-man they should be set at a depth of three or four inches at the most; not one foot under the surface, as is the common practice of truckers. Market gardeners cut the shoots as soon as the tips appear above the surface, so that their shoots are blanched for their whole length; but they do this at the expense of the table quality, as only the tips are edible in this way, and even these taste very much like old hay to any one who has been accustomed to the richness and delicate flavor of shoots cut at the surface when they are from three to four inches in height; this method has also the advantage of not destroying the young shoots just coming up, as the stalks are only cut an inch or so underground, and the knife only reaches the one intended to be cut. If the appearance of the blanched asparagus is desired, it can be much better obtained (that is, with less sacrifice of quality) by placing four or five inches of hay, straw or other litter over the crowns, which can be pushed away from the stalk when cutting and easily replaced. There is another strong reason for not following the deep planting, as usually practiced, and that is, in having your crowns so much nearer the surface they feel the warming and growing influence of the sun sooner in the season, and you are able to have your asparagus for cutting a full week earlier than your neighbor who plants deep. VARIETIES OF ASPARAGUS. As mentioned above, this succulent is capable of great improvement by careful selection of seed from the best stalks. The old Purple Top variety is no longer grown, its place having been taken by the larger shoots and better quality of the variety known as Conover’s Colossal. This latter, however, has been propagated so extensively and with so little care that it is now almost impossible to obtain seed or plants that will produce the splendid shoots of the original stock. Of the new varieties Barr’s Mammoth seems to be the most promising, and as grown in some fields in the vicinity of Philadelphia produces shoots which will average nearly an inch in diameter. BEANS.