Where expense and labor are not regarded, and it is wished to prolong the season for this delicious vegetable, some of the large plants in a bed, two. or three years old, may, before winter sets in, be taken up with large balls of earth and placed close together in a garden frame, which may then be covered over with boards, taking care to leave a space of 12 or 14 inches between the crown of the roots and the top of the frame; then by heaping fresh stable manure upon and round the frame, the process of forcing will be very much accelerated. Another mode often adopted where a hot-house is kept, is to put a hill of old plants in a box and force near the flues; of course covering the crown of the plants with a flower pot to exclude the light in order to blanch the shoots as they push forth.

This vegetable is cooked and eaten exactly like asparagus.

Avbricus.

New - York. September, 1852.

Tributes to the Memory of Mr.Downing.

The following beautiful tribute to the late editor of The Horticulturist, written by one of its correspondents, Henry F. French, Esq., of Exeter, N. H., is copied from the Home Journal:

Poor Downing is dead. In the dreadful calamity on the Hudson, which brought death to so many aud sorrow to the hearts of thousands more, he. whose name is associated with all that is fresh and beautiful in nature - with the starting grass and fragrant blossoms of spring, time - with the rustling leaves and waving branches of summer - with the clustering fruits and yellow harvest of autumn - has perished from the glad and beautiful earth; bow much more glad and beautiful because of the life of him who has just passed away.

He who, as a prophet, inspired with the very genius of The Beautiful, taught us not only the eternal principles of taste, and thus enabled our judgments to appreciate its true manifestations, but also infused into our hearts a genuine love for what is lovely - giving to the eye a new light in the glancing of the moonlit water, and in the rainbow-hue of every dew-drop of the morning - giving to the ear new music, as well in the solemn rustling of the tempest-stricken forest, as in the gentle murmuring of the zephyr through our latticed bower; he who, by his teachings, thus awakened in us a new life, and so brought us more nearly into harmony with the great Author and Architect of all, has gone out from among us.

He who, as a wise and gentle brother, has "taken sweet counsel" with us. in arranging the "surroundings" of our pleasant rural homes, m the position of every group of trees and every flowering shrub that ornaments the lawn,- he who kindly sat with us, and carefully " counted the cost" of our dwelling, planning with singular combination of knowledge and taste, the various conveniences and luxuries of life show-mg how far more necessary is a nice perception of fitness and harmony to right enjoyment, than abundant riches; he who has gilded the " refined gold " of the wealthy, by working it out into what has been expressively termed the "frozen music" of architecture, and at the same time has "painted the lily" and thrown "a perfume on the violet" for the poor and lowly, by enlightening their minds and filling them with new perceptions; he, our master and our friend, suddenly is " blotted from the things that be".

And yet how little of such a man can die. To his family, to his immediate circle of personal friends, and those who met him in the daily walks of life, it is indeed death, in all its dread reality. With them, " each heart knoweth his own bitterness," and with their sorrow " the stranger intermeddle!h not " But to us, •who chiefly knew him through his written teachings, and have him still with us in the pages of his "Landscape Gardening." "Cottage Residences." and "Country Houses," in his " Fruits and Fruit-Trees," and " The Horticulturist" - to us, to the world, to posterity, he still lives.

We mourn for one who, in his department of knowledge, stood confessedly above any other on this whole continent - a man who came to us, not like most great minds, too early to be appreciated or even recognised, or too "late to be useful, but who came and was welcomed just when the inhabitants of this western world had laid down the woodman's axe, and were anxiously waiting for lessons which should enable them to advance from the stern and rigid principles of mere utility, to the higher and more graceful pursuits of science and of art - from the rude cabin of the settler, to the vine-sheltered cottage or more lofty dwelling of the artist and the scholar. This man, we are told, is dead; but still he stands forth, for us, pre-eminent as if yet among the living, patiently, as heretofore, in his written words, replying again and again to our inquiry, How shall we make the earth more beautiful, and humanity more pure?

Philosophy has suggested that the impress of objects perceived by what we term sight. is constantly repeated, projected, again and again, into space, travelling with the rapidity of light, to be intercepted, perchance, thousands of years hence, by the refined senses of mortals even, translated to distant spheres; and that nothing, whether it be a material atom, a note of music, or the reflected image of a flower, which has once been, can ever cease to be. The thought, however fanciful, is pleasing in connection with the memory of one whose life has been successfully devoted to the creation of beauty all around. How these daguerreotypes may have filled all space, and eternity itself, with bis beautiful creations!

And now the trite question, usually so easily answered when one has gone who occupied a large space in the public mind, will be heard, " Who shall Jill his place?" The answer to this inquiry has already been suggested: His place is already filled. The niche in Fame's Temple for him who should develope a new world in the pursuits of"Rural life and Rural Taste" in America, like that for the discoverer of a continent, can contain but one statue.

In early manhood he has fallen, but not, indeed, before he had finished a life-work, and we who lament what seems, at first, his untimely fate, should remember that true life is not measured by vibrations of the pendulum, and that "his life is long which answers life's great end," whether it be drawn out to three score years and ten, or ended, like his, when scarcely half those years have passed away.

And now, what eulogy for the dead? what monument to the memory of our friend depart-ed? This work is also finished. Throughout the length and breadth of our country, wherev- , er the air is fragrant with the perfume of cher-ished flowers, or murmurs through cultivated groves and gardens, it breathes the praises of him whose spirit more than any other, has re-fined the taste, and whose knowledge guided the hand of the cultivator; and the winds which sweep over our forests, - " those grand old woods" of oak and pine, and hemlock - already celebrate the fame of him who boldly asserted their right to the first rank in the world's catalogue of the majestic works of nature. His monument I Is it not already on every hill-top. and in every valley, in every town and every village, where Gothic art expresses, with its vertical lines, in lofty towers and pointed arches, aspiring Hope, and all embracing love - where the encircling, overspreading, all uniting dome of Roman architecture illustrates, in public halls and capitols, the sentiments of patriotism and unity?

He has, indeed, " erected a monument more enduring than brass." His memory! Is it not already beautifully entwined with the vine that encircles the stately columns on the banks of our noble rivers, or hangs from the humble porch of the true-sheltered cottage? Who among us has built him a house, or planted a vineyard, or reared a rare flower, uninfluenced by his taste? Who, in town or country, does not cherish an abiding sentiment of gratitude and love towards one whose life it was to re tine and elevate the hearts of men, turning them from gain and worldlincss, to the appreciation of the beautiful in the works of Him who has not in vain, for his creatures, spread out the landscape, and made the woods vocal, and the air fragrant? No; of all who have thus suddenly perished, "He will not float upon his watery bier Unwept".

With no desire to sketch his every.day life, or coldly to analyze his character as an author or an artist, hut under the first impulse of the mingled feelings of sadness, of affection, of lx»reave-ment, which must find a wide sympathy throughout our country, as his melancholy fate becomes known, tin's notice of our departed friend has been written.

"HEAVEN KEEP HIs MEMORY GREEN".