Cannot Read Application Settings

I've defined two application settings in my web.config file. But in the following code :

Dim rootWebConfig1 As System.Configuration.Configuration
rootWebConfig1 =
System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.O penWebConfiguration(Nothing)
If (rootWebConfig1.AppSettings.Settings.Count 0) Then

sField1 = rootWebConfig1.AppSettings.Settings("field1")
sField2 = rootWebConfig1.AppSettings.Settings("field2")

End If

rootWebConfig1.AppSettings.Settings.Count always returns 0.

What am I doing wrong?