Three years after our first bed from seed was started we sold three hundred and fifty-four bunches at an average of forty cents a bunch. Early in the season we got fifty cents, toward the end of the season some were sold for thirty-five cents. Since then the annual returns have never dropped below two hundred and eighty-six dollars. Manuring and cultivating cost approximately twelve dollars a year. The bed occupied about a quarter of an acre of ground. Having a number of egg customers, we sell direct and so get the full price, but even wholesale prices range from fifteen to twelve cents. There are two ways of starting beds, sowing seed or setting out plants. One-year-old plants will cost from sixty cents to a dollar a hundred. Planted in April and well cared for, they will provide several dishes for the home table the following spring and nearly a full crop the second spring. Seed sowed at the same time will take a year longer, but after that will give a larger yield than the transplanted plants and, as asparagus-beds are productive for fifteen or twenty years, the one-year loss in the beginning is an economy. But it is well to set out a few plants, simply because in the country one cannot get Southern vegetables, which come into the city early in the spring, and, therefore, should try to have a home supply as quickly as possible. In selecting ground for an asparagus-bed, it must be remembered that it is a permanent crop, and cannot be transplanted after it is established. It will grow on any ordinary garden soil which is well drained, but, when possible, heavy subsoil with light sand or loam above it should be selected, as it will invariably produce an earlier crop each year than heavy ground. The soil should slope to the south or southwest, and a shelter from the northeast is also desirable. For our large market bed we used land that had been under cultivation for two years. The preceding crops had been corn, oats and potatoes, so it had been thoroughly worked. After the potatoes were harvested in the fall, the field was ploughed, and barn-yard manure scattered broadcast over it. Early the following spring the ground was again ploughed, to turn in the manure, and harrowed each way to thoroughly break up and pulverise the soil. Should you be compelled to use ground that has not been worked previously, and is of a heavy, damp character, it would be well to plough as early as possible in summer, if necessary, using a subsoil plough, to break the ground to a depth of fifteen or sixteen inches.