The fall clearing of the plantation is an important part of asparagus culture. As soon as the berries are turning red--but not before--the stalks should be cut off even with the ground. If left longer the berries will drop off, their seeds will soon become embedded in the ground and fill the soil with seedling asparagus plants, which are about the most obstinate weed in the asparagus bed. If cut sooner they are not sufficiently matured, and the roots are deprived of their nourishment. All the brush should be removed at once to an open field and burned, so as not to provide lodging-places for injurious insects and fungi. Some recommend leaving the seedless plants as a mulch during the winter, but the possible benefit of this is so insignificant that it is not worth while to leave them for a second cleaning in spring, when time is far more valuable.
The principal causes of asparagus beds running out are that in the first place ten plants are set out in a space where only one could thrive; then that the ground is not rich enough and had no proper cultivation; and last, but not least, that the cutting of the stalks has been carried to excess. What to do with the old bed is sometimes a perplexing question, especially when a place changes hands and the new proprietor has more progressive ideas than the former one had.
Let the old bed stay, and set out a new one according to rational methods. Some years ago the writer came into possession of an asparagus bed which was known to be forty years old, and may have been much older. It was a solid mass of roots without any distinguishable rows. The spears produced were so small and tough that the first impulse was to dig up the roots. But as this proved to be a more formidable task than was anticipated, another plan was pursued. In autumn the bed was thickly covered with fine yard manure. The following spring the bed was marked out into strips of two feet in width. When the sprouts appeared those in every alternate strip were cut clean off during the entire summer, and the others allowed to grow. In the autumn of the year another heavy application of manure was given to the entire bed. The following year but few shoots appeared in the strips which had been cut all through the summer. These were treated the same as before, and in the third year not a sprout appeared in the alleys. The stalks left for use improved greatly during the first year and the third year were of good serviceable size and quality, so that even after the new bed, which had been planted at the time this experiment was commenced, came into bearing, the old one was retained for several years longer. Probably if the vacant strips had been made three or four feet wide the result would have been still better. This experience suggests the idea that the easiest and least expensive way of exterminating an old asparagus bed is to persistently mow down all the shoots for a season or two.