148 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



grades of celery can be produced cheaper on such muck lands as those 

 about Kalamazoo, but I am certain that celery can be grown on most of 

 the farms in Michigan, which in quality would be very much better than 

 most of that in our markets. 



Yesterday we took out some celery on our trial grounds. Many of the 

 stalks were eighteen inches long, many an inch in diameter, and so brittle 

 that I could and did take a stalk by each end, and by a quick move of the 

 hands in opposite directions, snap a piece out of the center, whose ends 

 were as square as if they had been cut by a knife. Those who used it say 

 they don't care to eat any that they can buy, after having this. And yet, 

 this was grown on a clay soil that, six years ago, would make brick; and if 

 celery can be grown on that, perhaps as poor a soil for its growth as can 

 easily be found, can not every Michigan farmer grow it? They certainly 

 can, if they know how; and to know how they must study the plant. 



Every flavor or scent, if intensified sufficiently, becomes disagreeable. 

 Thus the intense flavor of the green portion of celery is disagreeable, bit- 

 ter, and in some degree poisonous. When any vegetable growth is made 

 rapidly, and in the dark, it becomes white, and its natural flavor is lessened, 

 made more mild; and in such cases as the leek, endive, and celery, made 

 much more agreeable. 



Again, crispness, succulency, and tenderness in vegetables is developed 

 in proportion to the rapidity of growth. What we need, then, to produce 

 well-flavored, crisp, succulent, tender celery, is a rapid growth in the dark. 

 How can we do this? Celery is a very peculiar plant in its habit of 

 growth. If we plant an ounce of celery seed, under favorable conditions, 

 it will be nicely up in thirty days; and if we wash the little plants clean of 

 earth, they altogether will weigh from five to twenty ounces, an increase of 

 from five to twenty fold in the first thirty days. 



Now, plant an ounce of any of the quick-growing radishes, under equally 

 favorable circumstances, and in thirty days they will be fit to market, and 

 the 8,500 roots produced, if every seed makes a plant, will weigh from 

 2,000 to 4,000 ounces, an increase in the first thirty days of from 2,000 to 

 4,000 fold, against the celery's increase of from five to twenty fold. This 

 shows how slowly the celery plant grows at first. But, with every succeed- 

 ing month, not only the actual growth, but the rate of growth, increases 

 until, as it approaches maturity, it is perhaps the most rapidly growing 

 plant in the garden. But you all know that growth necessitates food, and 

 in this fact we find a reason for our plant's action; for, during the slower- 

 growing, earlier periods, the plant was not only extending its root surface 

 and putting itself in position to collect enormous quantities of food from 

 the soil, but was also storing in the roots and the thickened collar at the 

 base of the leaves, an extra supply of food to be used on demand. We see 

 how the life plan of the plant fits with our purpose of securing a rapid 

 growth in the dark. We simply wait until it is prepared to grow most 

 rapidly, and then gather and hold the leaves up so closely as to shut out 

 the light and keep the growing leaves of the center in the dark, and 

 our object is accomplished. This we do by just drawing the leaves into 

 an upright position and holding them there with earth. Then, drawing 

 them still closer and banking them with more earth, until we have com- 

 pletely shut out the light from the now rapidly growing center, we secure 

 the white, crisp, tender central leaves which are so delicious. 



It is a mistake to think that earthing-up turns the leaf-stems which we 



