34 



that the celery took a start and grew very finely ; and we had a very fine crop of celery after 

 all. I have not been in the habit of keeping it as Mr. Woodward suggests. I have no 

 trouble in gettting at it. I put it in trenches, and when I take it up I keep plenty of soil 

 at the root, and stand it up in the trenches. Then I take a couple of boards and put 

 them over the top, lay a little straw over the boards, and there it keeps ; and we go 

 and open it on any mild day and get any quantity of celery we want, and take it into the 

 oellar and store it. We have often found it to grow in these trenches. Stalks grow up 

 from the very root, and by spring there will be quite a growth of it. 



Mr. Woodward. — We used to store our celery just as Mr. Beadle says, and it is not 

 half the work to put it in the boxes that it is to put it in the trenches. And you do not 

 have to wait for a warm day ; it is there any time. When it is very cold where I have 

 my celery stored I throw mats over the boxes. 



Mr. Dempsey.— I have never tried the cultivation of celery very extensively, but gen- 

 ally try to grow nearly enough for my family's supply. We find no difficulty in growing 

 it. We select a piece of land that is capable of standing any drought, make it rich, and 

 we find that we can get very nice celery. We cultivate just as Mr. Woodward speaks of,, 

 and we have been in the habit of packing it in the cellar. That has not a cement bottom 

 — ^just an earth floor. We fill in with the earth we dig out with it — any earth, in fact. 

 This system of watering is a novelty to me ; but a neighbour of mine had very nice celery 

 this winter, which we wei'e admiring, and he said that he simply packed it in his cellar in 

 the fall just as we did, but he would go in occasionally and throw water over the top of it. 

 He kept it almost saturated with water all the winter through. I had always thought too 

 much water would rot the tops, but in this case it was just the opposite. 



Mr. Woodward. — If the temperature happens to get up warm it will rot the tops, 

 but if you keep water at the bottom to keep it moist it will be all right. 



Mr. Dempsey. — I have seen it packed in straw for the winter, set up as Mr. Wood- 

 ward says — close together, and with straw around it. 



Mr. Woodward. — When we commence on a box it is just full, and it is pretty hard 

 work to get it started. At first when you pull it out it is just like pulling out weeds 

 that grow out of doors, bijt after you have once got it broken you can keep taking it out. 

 The variety mostly used by us is Boston Market. 



Mr. Beall. — Those who have never grown celery in the black muck, and who have 

 black muck in which they might do it, I would advise to try it, because celery is the most 

 profitable vegetable you can grow if you have plenty of black muck. I can remember in 

 our town, five or six years ago, when it was regularly sold at ten cents a root. For the last 

 four or five years we can buy all we like, and it is generally eighteen or twenty inches 

 long from the butt to the end of the leaf. It is grown in black muck. It is very easy to 

 grow it. A lazy man can grow it. It sells now generally at from two to three cents a 

 bunch. 



Mr. CtOTT. — Is it planted on the surface or in trenches 1 



Mr. Beall. — -In trenches ; and there is no water. Even this last summer where we 

 had about six weeks Avith scarcely any rain we noticed no difference — it grew right along 

 in that particular sort of soil. 



NEW VARIETIES OF POTATOES. 



Mr. Bucke, in opening a discussion on the question " Which of the new varieties of 

 potatoes give promise of being valuable?" said : The only new variety of potatoes I know 

 anything about is Mr. Dempsey's. I sent some of them to Keewatin to a man who is ear- 

 liest out there. He came in the other day and told me that out of the pouiid of seed he 

 had got he had obtained a yield of 81 pounds. The potatoes were very large indeed. 

 Three pounds was a small one, he said. I thought that was a very good yield. 



Mr. Beadle. — Was it just one pound of seed 1 



Mr. Bucke. — It was the pound sent out by the Association. 



Mr. Dempsey. — That was to be under two pound.s. 



