262 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



LIMA BEANS FOR A LONG SEASON. 



The readers of the following item may not be able to follow its provisions 

 exactly, but in it there is an idea in regard to getting ahead of the season 

 ■which can be used by almost anybody who has a hot bed or a cold frame. Mr. 

 B. G. Smith, of Cambridge, Mass., tells the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society how he has fresh Lima beans from the middle of August through the 

 season. He says : 



Sow seed the second week in April, always being careful to place the eye 

 down, in small boxes, five in each. These boxes are without bottoms, six 

 inches in height, seven inches square at the lower part, made of half-inch 

 stuff. They are filled with loam and placed in the cold grapery. AVhen the 

 plants are about two inches high the ground is prepared and the pole set out, 

 and a hole large enough to receive the box made at the foot of each. A box 

 is then lifted on a shovel and placed in the hole and the shovel withdrawn. 

 The box is then lifted up, the object of making the top an inch smaller than 

 the bottom being to permit this. The Lima bean is a tropical plant and 

 requires a long season. It is not advisable to set out the young plants before 

 the first of June, but this is early, as early as the seed can be planted outdoors. 

 In saving seed the earliest should be chosen. 



KALAMAZOO CELERY. 



Kalamazoo is getting to be a large exporting point for celery. This is the 

 way the growers put it into winter quarters, according to the Kalamazoo 

 Gazette : 



Dig about two feet below the surface, then board up abovit two feet above, 

 then on a frame six feet high i3-foot boards meet and slant down the sides, 

 with windows, all of which is banked and covered with manure. They are 

 usually built 24 feet wide and 40, 75, or 100 feet long. If the building is 50 

 feet long it will hold 50,000 celery; 100 feet long, 100,000, etc. It is built on 

 upland if possible, for mai'sh is too damp and cold. When first put in the 

 houses it is green, but bleaches in a few weeks. They pack as close as it will 

 stand, putting boards every few feet to prevent heating and rotting. People 

 can keep their own celery as well as apples or potatoes, by putting some marsh 

 soil in the bottom of a barrel, packing the celery root down, not sideways, and 

 keeping where it will not freeze. It is desirable to keep it growing. The 

 sprouts may run over the top of the barrel but will be no disadvantage. Put 

 in green and it will bleach, and you can wash and trim as you wish for the table. 

 One of the most annoying jobs in the business is the tying in half-dozen 

 bunches. The long felt want is for some Yankee to invent a self-binder. 



USES OF THE POTATO. 



We are apt to think of the potato as simply an article of food. The Scien- 

 tific American in the following paragraph gives other uses of this valuable 

 tuber: 



In France farina is largely used for culinary purposes. The famed gravies, 

 sauces and soups of France are largely indebted for their excellence to that 

 source, and its bread and pastry equally so, while the so-called cognac imported 



