Asparagus.

Manawatu Herald, 18 January 1902, Page 2

Asparagus.

A trial shipment of asparagus was recently sent to England from Vic* torn, under cold storage conditions. This fact seems to have stirred Mr J. M. Sinclair, the London representative of the Victorian Agricultural Department, into making some .suggestions. Passing through California recently, he reports, he was informed that the cultivation of asparagus on a very large scale was carded on successfully on the low-lying estuary islands of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. The soil in them . reclaimed areas is rich vegetable . loam. On one of these islands thelra are hundreds of acres under asparagus cultivation, good'crops, of excellent quality being obtainable. Nearly the whole quantity produced is put' into cans, and in this form is hot 1 only sent throughout the United States, but is also exported to Great' - .Britain and various Continental . countries. Many thousands of cases, he says, are landed at Liverpool and- ’ London, and tinned asparagus is coming into very gena<-al use 1 in hotels and restaurants. Ohs of the canning establishments .in California has an annual output of 100.000 cases. Mr Sinclair alludes to the possibility of the extensive cultivation of asparagus in Victoria, > for canning and exporting to India and the East, and also to South Africa.