1885-] 



ANU HORTICULTURIST. 



47 



article and make the most money. Too much ex- 

 pensive hand labor is required to justify going in- 

 to the business on a large scale. 



The celery business is of more value to a town 

 than can be shown by figures. The drainage 

 necessary to celery growing is worth everything 

 to the health of towns. Celery can be raised on 

 any marsh properly drained, and it is not neces- 

 sary that the marsh lie along the mystic waters of 

 the Kalamazoo. Yet it is a recognized fact that 

 specialties hover together. Celery growers and 

 shippers have here an association to protect their 

 interests and disseminate information useful to the 

 industry. 



Practical celery growers can teach most men 

 who write books on the subject their A B C's, and 

 the jolly Dutchman could wake up in the night 

 any time and laugh at some of the advice given. 



Celery growing resembles farming wonderfully 

 about one thing. The campaign opens about 

 January I and, save an occasional holiday, it is 

 "hurrah, boys," till about December 31. 



Celery growers are beginning to raise their own 

 seed, which heretofore has been a serious item of 

 expense. There are about fifty principal varieties : 

 most popular among them are the White Walnut 

 and Crawford. 



The objective points for perfect celery are 

 soundness, brittleness and keeping qualities. The 

 seed is sown in narrow rows in hot-beds, and this 

 produces plants for the early crops. As soon as 

 the weather will permit, seed is sown outdoors in 

 beds of about a square rod of plants for a square 

 acre of land. Plants are set in May or as soon as 

 the size of the plants and the geniality of the cli- 

 mate will permit. 



Some marshes may be plowed with a team by 

 using wooden shoes on the horses. These shoes 

 are made ot two-inch pine, cut round, and two 

 curved pieces of iron, moving freely in the shoe 

 and bolted together over the hoof. If this method 

 is reckoned unsafe a windlass may be placed on 

 the upland across the center of the marsh to be 

 plowed. A whisky barrel makes a good windlass. 

 A miniature marsh railroad is handy on land 

 where horses cannot be safely driven, to carry 

 manure, tools, plants, etc. It consists of a hght 

 car and as much track as is required in sections 

 of about one rod long each and movable, so they 

 can be laid to any part of the marsh. 



Open ditches for draining are common, cutting 

 the land into quarter acre sections, but if tile drain 

 is used two rows of celery can be raised in the 

 space taken by the open ditch. The better marsh 



is drained, the handsomer crops look in time of 

 drouth and the soil can be worked immediately 

 after a rain. 



Two and three crops are raised off this soil in 

 one season. Table onions are put in for the early 

 market ; early celery is set in June and harvested 

 the last of August, and winter celery is set in Sep- 

 tember and secured in November. Each crop 

 must be fertilized, as the soil is so porous the ma- 

 nurial properties wash down out of reach of plant 

 roots. Celery is set six feet apart between the 

 rows and about a finger's length apart in the row. 

 Table onions or some early crop is raised between 

 the rows and harvested before the celery is ready 

 to hill. Hilling this celery crop leaves a trench 

 between the rows, along which manure is spread 

 and another row of celery plants set, and by the 

 time the first celery crop is marketed the latter 

 crop is grown and needs the soil for hilling. If 

 the season is favorable another row of plants is set 

 in place of the first celery crop harvested. Many 

 growers have quite a trade in celery plants, ship- 

 ping the plants for setting far and wide. 



The first and last crops are bleached with soil 

 hilled closely to the leaves, but the intermediate 

 crop is bleached with boards held closely to the 

 plants by bent iron hooks. Boards bleach the 

 celery higher to the leaves and in quicker time. 



Shippers have adopted a uniform box sawed 

 into proper lengths for different orders as twenty, 

 fifty or 100 dozens, the ends of the bo.xes being 

 inch stuff and the sides half inch. Celery is 

 trimmed, washed and tied into bunches of a dozen 

 stalks each. This work in summer is done in a 

 shed built over a stream, in winter in celery cellars. 



These cellars are made by digging two feet be- 

 low the surface and boarding up two feet above ; 

 then on a center frame six feet high, twelve-foot 

 boards meet and slant to the ground with windows. 

 The cellar is then banked and covered with ma- 

 nure. They are built twenty-four feet wide and 

 fifty, 100 or 200 feet long according as they are re- 

 quired to hold 50,000, 100,000 or 200,000 dozen 

 celery. These are built on upland, as marsh is too 

 damp and cold. When the celery is first put into 

 the cellar it is green, but bleaches in a few weeks. 

 It is packed closely, standing boards every few feet 

 ' to prevent heating. The object is to keep it grow- 

 ing. The roof boards of these cellars are used in 

 summer for bleaching the second crop. 



Another method of storing and bleaching for 

 winter is in trenches two feet deep and wide, pack- 

 ing as closely as the crop will stand. 



A hilling plow has been invented on which there 



