The growth of asparagus is still a very important part of the
market-gardener's business in the parishes referred to, but it does
not continue to produce the best results indefinitely and continuously
on the same land, and the growers have been obliged to extend their
acreages and take fresh plots. I have little doubt that with the
scientific application of artificial fertilizers the yield would
continue satisfactory for a much longer period. Plant disease of any
kind is nearly always due to starvation for want of the chemical
constituents upon which the crop feeds, though sometimes caused by
unhealthy sap, the result of late spring frosts or unsuitable weather.
The asparagus-growers relied too much upon soot as a fertilizer; it
has a marvellous effect upon the mechanical condition of heavy land;
its particles intervene between the particles of the almost impalpable
powder of which clay is composed, and the soil approximates to a
well-tilled garden plot after a few applications and careful
incorporation, and in the local phraseology, it becomes "all of a
myrtle." But as plant food soot contains nitrogen only, a great plant
stimulant, which quickly exhausts the soil of the other necessary
constituents. If the growers would make use of basic slag,
superphosphate, or bone dust to replace the phosphate of lime removed
by the crop, and of potash in one of its available forms, they would
soon experience a great improvement in the power of their asparagus to
resist disease and deterioration.
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