As you make your asparagus plantation practically for a lifetime, you must exercise care and judgment in choosing the site. In a family garden a long row, say 75 to 100 feet, if you have the space, at the rear of the garden, is a good place. This not only puts it out of the way of other crops, but it also gives you a good background in summer and fall, for the herbage of asparagus is ornamental. Asparagus used to be planted in beds, but under new methods of farming, this plan has been abandoned. Rows are more satisfactory. When grown as a field crop this allows of horse-tool tillage and saves much labor. Asparagus roots are wanderers and reach out for food in every direction, even more horizontally than perpendicularly, which is why it is unwise to have rows closer together than four feet. Seedsmen sell asparagus plants, but it is usually better to grow your own plants, although they take so long to mature. Seeds may be soaked in warm water for a day before planting and are then sown in drills and covered about an inch deep. The plants should be thinned to stand three or four inches apart in the row. Give frequent tillage throughout the entire season, and in the spring following they will be ready to plant in their permanent place. Here they are set deep, in a furrow or trench, say six to ten inches, so that the young crown of the plant is covered two or three inches deep with loose earth or good fine compost. As the plants grow the trench is gradually filled. If filled at first, the young plants might not be strong enough to push their way up. You will see from this that the asparagus plot must be deeply sub-soiled, for if you do not have the land properly prepared at the first, you will never have good results. Besides, unless the soil is rich in humus, asparagus cannot thrive at all, for it requires a moist soil at the roots all the season. When you have planted your yearling seedlings you must give them another year before you do any cutting. A few stray shoots may be picked off, but it is advisable to wait until the plants are in their third year before cutting. To cut earlier may permanently injure your crop. It is also possible to injure it by continuing it too late each season, although every stalk should be removed even if it be too poor for use. The crop should be cut clean, and all cutting should be over before July 4th, in the middle Atlantic States. After that the tops do the growing and the more they flourish the better your asparagus will yield next year, for it is from the foliage which springs up that the roots and crown secure energy for the next season’s work. The tops should be mowed late in the fall, and generally speaking it is better to burn them than to allow them to rot on the bed as some growers do, because when the asparagus berries are plentiful you are apt to have trouble next season with seedlings; and even when this is not so, it interferes with the fall tillage which is so necessary.