Reading an ASC file into R

Package SDMTools has the function read.asc, which works under R 3.2.4. However, at least in my case, using read.table with all default values worked out of the box.

Use Laf package, it is insanely fast.

Update: It is possible to read .asc files (aka ESRI ASCII Raster files) with the raster function directly from the 'raster' package. The help says:

If x is a filename, the following additional variables are recognized:

native: logical. Default is FALSE except when package rgdal is missing. If TRUE, reading and writing of ..., and Arc ASCII files is done with native (raster package) drivers, rather than via rgdal....

library(raster)
r = raster("C:\\...\\Dropbox/MVZ/aet2009sep.asc")
plot(r)

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Edit 2 [obsolete]:

An alternative is the raster() function, having the package rgdal properly installed.

library(rgdal)
r = raster("C:\\...\\Dropbox/MVZ/aet2009sep.asc")
plot(r)

Edit 1 [obsolete]:

The package adehabitat is now deprecated. Currently, it provides a warning when loading it:

It is dangerous to use it, as bugs will no longer be corrected. It is now recommended to use the packages adehabitatMA, adehabitatLT, adehabitatHR, and adehabitatHS.
...

Original answer [obsolete]:

Use the import.asc function from R package adehabitat (see page 92):

library(adehabitat)
asc = import.asc("C:\\...\\Dropbox/MVZ/aet2009sep.asc")

#plot asc object.
library(raster)
r = raster(asc)
plot(r)