240 ANNUAL REPORT 



I had about the success brother Wilcox has reported. The ground 

 was too dry. I was a little discouraged, but thought I would try- 

 it again. The next year I took some very deep loam — deep and 

 moist — made some trenches about 20 rods loog, and put the boys 

 to setting plants along those rows. The next day the sun came 

 out very hot. That was a damper. I waited till there came another 

 rain, and I set them out again About four or five days after, 

 there came on one of those heavy showers, and all the plants that 

 were not washed out were buried up. I don't suppose, in those 

 rows, there were more than thirty or forty plants. The following 

 year 1 didn't plant any celery. I calculate to put in an acre or 

 two, the coming year, and I expect to raise, maybe, two or three 

 hundred dollars' worth. As regards quality, my customers are 

 well pleased, I think. They say it is good. 



Mrs. Kennedy. I have never tried to raise celery, but one of 

 our merchants asked me, the other day, if I had tried it. He told 

 me that he had raised lots of it, and made more money out of it 

 than anything else in his garden. 



President Elliot. Now, if there is no one else who can give any 

 experience, I want to tell you what I don't know about raising cel- 

 ery. "We have at Minneapolis one of the most enterprising Germans 

 that I know of in the northwest, in regard to raising vegetables. 

 That is Mr. Busch, of Richfield. He has been growing celery suc- 

 cessfully for several years, but this last year the drouth beat him. 

 He was raising it on high ground, that is, it was not called high 

 ground, but it was medium dry ground. This year he has put into 

 market celery with the whole bunch about as large as my little 

 finger, with about three or four little slim sticks. It was a perfect 

 failure this year, on account of the drouth. The consequence is, he 

 has made a loss. Now, I have in mind another German, who has 

 been working for the last four or five years, trying to develop the 

 celery industry in his way. He is located somewhat differently, 

 being on the side of what used to be a pond or lake. That lake he 

 drained, took the water off, and it came into grass. There was one 

 portion of it (a little arm) that was not so deep as the rest, and he 

 has broken that up, and this year put it in to celery. At the time 

 I was there, which was in the dryest part of August, the roads were 

 very dusty, and everything seemed to be wilted down, but withal, 

 he was digging magnificent celery. He had celery with bunches 

 as big around as my cuff, magnificent bunches, I never saw finer. 

 To look at the soil, you would think it was nothing but dry peat, 

 without any moisture in it; but if you were to scrape off the top, 

 and take up a handful of the soil, you could squeeze water out of it; 



