PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 149 



earth up, white, and makes them crisp. It does not. It only makes those 

 that grow after we earth-up, white and crisp, and you can thus see how 

 useless it is to expect good celery from slow-growing plants. 



But, to have quick growth, we must have abundant food in the soil, 

 abundant water to dissolve this food, and abundant roots and vitality to 

 convey it into the plant. The golden rules, then, for growing fine celery 

 are : 



1. Secure strong plants, by protecting the weak and slow-growing seed- 

 lings from injury from overcrowding or from more rapid -growing weeds. 



2. Set the plants in soil which is as rich as it can possibly be made. 

 The best rule for it is that for making the mince pies we used to dream 

 over at Thanksgiving time — make them as rich as you can afford, and 

 then shut your eyes and drop in two handsful more. 



3. Bank up and give plenty of water, when the plants are in their great- 

 est rapidity of growth. 



I would be glad to talk longer, and refer to some of the difficulties in 

 the way of carrying out these rules, but I have already talked too long; 

 and, if I have called your attention to the principles underlying celery 

 culture, you can yourselves think out methods of carrying them out 

 successfully. 



Friday Morning Session. 



A crowded programme was presented at the closing session Friday 

 morning, but it was finished in good order, to the great satisfaction of 

 the large audience. The Lawton people evidently could and would have 

 enjoyed a full week of the good things presented at this meeting. 



HOW LAWTON GROWERS PRUNE GRAPES. 



Mr. Monroe presided, and in opening the session remarked that a 

 grapevine had been brought in, trained according to the method preva- 

 lent at Lawton, and would be pruned according to the local practice. 



Mr. Lawton: We are after grapes, not theories, at Lawton; we go in 

 for the most money and the least labor. Grapes at one cent per pound 

 leave no time for debate as to experimental training. 



The vine, supported upon a Kniffin trellis, was much branched and 

 in tree form, the branches long and sweeping to the ground, just as it 

 was when the leaves fell. Mr. Lawto:^ showed how he would prune it, 

 and how branches or arms would be left for renewal from the main vine. 

 The plan involved much shortening of the branches, leaving two or three 

 buds on each spur, but with long arms. 



Mr. A. H. Smith commended Mr. Lawton's plan of pruning, the 



