TEN years' experience IN CELERY CULTURE. 21 5 



The storage of late celery for fall and winter use is the hardest 

 problem we have to solve. One can put in a few plants in a box and 

 5et in a cool cellar and keep them quite easily, but you take several 

 thousand, and it becomes more difficult. A few general rules should be 

 closely observed, and let no one think that the small details are of 

 little importance. First, the plants must be healthy and not full 

 grown, the later to be kept the younger and greener it should be. 

 The reason for this is that the plant naturally wants to grow to 

 maturity, and if young it keeps on growing after put in the pit, while 

 if large and full grown it will soon decay. 



Cellars being too warm, the pit system is more commonly used. 

 One of my pits is twelve by twenty-four feet, and the dirt is thrown 

 out about eight inches deep. Put a covering of boards forming a 

 V over the celery, making it accessible at any time from a door in 

 the end. I set the celery m dirt and water after trimming ofif all 

 the outer useless leaves. As soon as the water settles away the plant 

 sets firm, and never wilts. It soon starts out new roots and a new 

 growth of stalk, which is always fine in quality. I also utilize my hot- 

 bed pits to good advantage, using the board shutters for covering 

 and mulching over them as cold weather comes on. 



Pitting celery in these ways works nicely up to Christmas or 

 New Years, but another method for later use seems far better : 

 heeling it into the ground. This method I have not tried until 

 this fall, but at the present time the plants are in fine shape, and all 

 looks very favorable. I would like to describe it in detail but have 

 time for only a few words. Dig, trim and set the celery its depth in 

 the ground, two plants thick and close together in the row. Throw 

 up ten inches of dirt and go through the same operation again, con- 

 'tinuing until six of these double rows are in, which completes the 

 bed. It will stand for some time in this condition with the tops 

 just a little above ground — light freezing will not hurt it. As colder 

 weather comes on and there is danger of freezing up for the season, 

 throw over the bed from each side five inches of dirt and let this 

 freeze, forming a crust of sufficient firmness to hold up a man ; then 

 cover with straw litter or whatever you have most convenient to keep 

 from freezing deeper, adding more as the weather becomes colder. 



Many other topics we might speak of, as irrigation, diseases, 

 marketing varieties, etc., but time will not allow. 



Mrs. A. A. Kennedy : I woula like to ask the gentleman whether 

 he finds any difficulty in bleaching the green varieties. 



Mr. Baldwin : There is no trouble if they are handled right. 

 By the last system I mentioned, it bleaches perfectly in the ground. 

 It is used on the largest scale north of Chicago along Lake Michi- 



