OUR DUTY AS HORTICULTURISTS. 21 3 



they will groan under our treatment. I am a professional nurse 

 for my tree, and yet that tree must have the best care. I believe 

 you are all professional nurses to your trees. 



TEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE IN CELERY CULTURE. 



H. J. BALDWIN, NORTHFIELD. 



As a new member of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society 

 I wish to say a few words by way of introduction. I have often 

 been invited to join this society, but as my business was so largely 

 along the line of vegetable growing I had the impression that but 

 little attention was paid to this subject at the society's meetings, and 

 I have no special desire now to bring in to these meetings a subject 

 foreign to the interests of the membership. However, I believe 

 the society might be greatly enlarged if the subject of vegetable grow- 

 ing in its different phases could be given ample attention. In pre- 

 senting this paper on celery culture I desire to state first that I do not 

 consider myself a professional in the business but have had ten years'- 

 experience and am willing to tell it to you as best 1 can. We face 

 this fact : that more and more celery is being consumed every year, 

 and where it used to be classed among the luxuries of life it is now 

 coming to be one of the necessities. My experience has been almost 

 entirely confined, as regards place, to the city of Northfield, and my 

 soil is only the ordinary upland garden soil, black loam with clay 

 subsoil. Few of us can have a natural celery soil, but let us not be 

 discouraged because we can not have the best. 



Gardeners all use the self-bleaching varieties for early use. 

 White Plume and Snow White are, I think, preferable to the yellow 

 varieties, as they are more healthy. Seed should be purchased from 

 reliable firms, and the very best is none to good, as the expense of 

 seed is but very little. 



For our first early celery I would advise sowing the seed the first 

 week in March in the hotbed. If sown too early it is apt to bolt and 

 go to seed. Remember the seed is small and requires two weeks 

 or over to germinate. I usually sift good sandy loam into shallow 

 flats, filling them nearly level full. Press down the loam with a 

 bit of a flat board, sow the seed on this flat surface broadcast, cover 

 lightly and press firm again ; then place a damp cloth over the surface 

 and leave it on until the celery is ready to come up. When the plants 

 commence to crowd each other transplant into other flats and get 

 them into cold frames as soon as the weather will permit. I would 

 not go to all this trouble of transplanting singly into flats for only 



