Celery Growing for the Amateur. 197 



world, and always in wet, cool places— along and in streams and ditches — 

 therefore nature teaches us that to make celery thrive best we must avoid, 

 as far as possible, a droughty soil and hot suns. 



We go back to the seed bed where the gardener has so often met with fail- 

 ure, and keeping nature by our side, try again. Let's see. The bed was 

 four by six feet, rich and mellow, seed sown shallow the middle of April — 

 we will sow it a scant half an inch in depth, in rows six inches apart, and 

 firm the ground with a garden roller or board. Now then for nature ; we 

 will keep the bed moist and cool by giving it a slight covering of fine straw, 

 just so the ground can be barely seen, and we will never let the ground dry 

 out beneath ; if rains are not sufficiently frequent we will use the watering-pot. 

 In ten days to two weeks we may, with certainty, look for the green rows. 

 We begin to scratch the straw ofl'and see that the supply of moisture is kept 

 up without remission, and ground kept mellow between the rows. When 

 the plants have attained a height of one or two inches we thin them out so 

 that they stand an inch apart in the row. Nine-tenths of our readers will not 

 have the courage to thin thus, but then we know they will constitute the vast 

 majority who will not have the vigorous success-insuring plants which we 

 shall possess. 



As the hot and drying days of July approach every other evening finds us 

 with six gallons of water which we sprinkle evenly over the bed. A few days 

 of neglect now would be very injurious and probably ruin our plants. At 

 this time, if our plants have grown over eight inches in height, we cut them 

 back to two or three inches. About the 15ih of July we find ourselves in 

 possession of six hundred strong and stocky plants; three hundred of these 

 will be sufficient for a large family, and we easily dispose of the remaining 

 three hundred at fifty cents per hundred, which will repay us for our seed 

 and the water we have carried. We begin to see now why we could not suc- 

 ceed by the old method; the seed, of necessity, was sown very shallow, the 

 ground had been dried out once or twice to the depth of the seed while it 

 was trying to germinate ; the surface had become slightly crusted, and being 

 out of its natural moist element the seed most'y perished ; what few did get 

 through and live were burned out the last of June by hot suns and lack of 

 moisture. The latter part of July we transplant. The farmer often finds 

 this difficult, and if the plants are weekly and have been " pulled," they are 

 unible to survive the ordeal of transplanting in a dry time. Celery loves cmI- 

 ness and must have moisture, but robbed of its fibrous feeding roots and trans- 

 planted in midsummer, with the cabbage, it is liable to get neither, hence his 

 lack of success. We will try to do a little difTerently and interfere with na- 

 ture as little as possible. To begin with, we shall have better plants and, in- 

 stead of pulling, we will lift them, thus securing many of the fibrous roots 

 within the lump of earth which we are careful to raise with them. We have 

 got our ground rich and fine, and have scooped out a trench an inch or two 

 in depth; toward night we take a shallow box and our garden trowel, and, 

 after wetting the bed thoroughly, we begin to dig plants. What, ho ? Gra- 



