If we are now ready to begin, let us begin right.  I have not much sympathy with finical, fussy gardening.  One of the chief fascinations of gardening is the endless field it affords for skilful sleight of hand, short-cuts, unconventional methods, and experiments.  The true gardener soon ceases to be a man of rules, and becomes one of strategy, of expedients.  He is prompt to act at the right moment.  Like the artist, he is ever seeking and acting upon hints from Nature.  The man of rules says the first of July is the time to set out winter cabbage; and out the plants go, though the sky be brazen, and the mercury in the nineties.  The gardener has his plants ready, and for a few days watches the sky.  At last he perceives that rain is coming; then he sets out his plants, and Nature’s watering starts them, unwilted, on their new growth.

At the same time I protest against careless, slovenly gardening—­ ground imperfectly prepared, crooked rows, seed half covered, or covered so deeply that the germs are discouraged long before they reach light.  One of the best aids to success is a small compost-heap composed equally of manure from the horse-stable, the cow-stable, and of leaves.  This should be allowed to stand so long, and be cut down and turned so often, that it becomes like a fine black powder, and is much the better for being kept under shelter from sun and rain.

All who hope to have a permanent garden will naturally think first of asparagus—­one of the vegetables that have bee a longest in cultivation, and one which is justly among the most valued.  It was cultivated hundreds of years before the Christian era, and is to-day growing in popular esteem among civilized peoples.

In the matter of preparation I shall take issue with many of the authorities.  I have read and known of instances wherein extraordinary expense and pains have been bestowed upon the asparagus-bed.  The soil has been dug out to the depth of two or more feet, the bottom paved, and the homely, hardy roots, accustomed to roughing it the world over, set out and tended with a care which, if given to a potato, would make it open its eyes.  There are few more hardy or widely distributed species of vegetables than asparagus.  It is “a native of the sea-coasts of various countries of Europe and Asia.”  According to Loudon, it is abundant on the sandy steppes in the interior of Russia.  In Southern Russia and Poland the horses and cows feed upon it.  It grows freely in the fens of Lincolnshire, and is indigenous to Cornwall.  On the borders of the Euphrates the shoots are so extraordinarily large and vigorous that Thompson thinks it would be to the advantage of gardeners to import roots from that region.  These facts may indicate that too much stress may have been laid on its character as a marine plant.  Yet it is true that it grows naturally on the coast of Holland, in the sandy valleys and on the downs, while off Lizard Point it flourishes naturally on an