346 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



have a regular house for it it is quite difficult to handle it. I don't 

 think we could handle it here the same as they do down there. 



Mr. McBroom : The rise in price in the winter would make 

 it profitable to handle if it could be done. 



Mr. Perkins: I kept some one winter, and it kept in good 

 condition, but I only did it once. Most of my attempts have been 

 failures — I get it either too hot or too cold. Did you have a par- 

 ticular house constructed for it? 



Mr. Baldwin: I have built them before now in pit form. 

 There is a great deal of information can be secured very readily 

 as to the construction of cheap houses. Make it with a board 

 roof and make the roof come to the surface of the ground like a 

 "V" and have it as long as you like. I have seen it in Massachu- 

 setts. But it doesn't seem to pay, as they ship in more attractive 

 looking celery from California and other places. 



Mr. Perkins: Do you think you could raise celery and sell 

 it at the price of Michigan and California celery? Do you think 

 you could compete with them? Do you think it would be com- 

 mercially profitable today? 



Mr. Baldwin : It depends entirely upon your market. If you 

 have private customers who really like good-flavored celery it 

 would be far superior to the California. 



Mr. Perkins : Yes, I am certain of that. However, they ship 

 the foreign stuff in in such large quantities, and they can hold it 

 almost indefinitely in those large storage houses. I never saw any 

 celery grown about the Twin Cities that can compete with the 

 California celery in looks. It is such large stuff; it seems the 

 conditions there are much more favorable to the development of 

 celery. 



Mr. McBroom : I would like to know if around St. Paul you 

 use commercial fertilizer for celery? 



Mr. Perkins : No, sir ; I don't think so. There is very little 

 commercial fertilizer used, plenty of stable manure to be had, 

 although it is getting scarcer every year. However, there is 

 still very little commercial fertilizer used. Once in a while you 

 meet a man — Mr. Gibbs, I think experimented somewhat with it, 

 not with celery but with other things. 



Mr. Gibbs : The experience I had with it, it was about all I 

 could do to get the commercial fertilizer to pay for itself. The 

 price of commercial fertilizer is advancing, like everything else. 



Mr. Perikns : You prefer to use ordinary stable manure? 



Mr. Gibbs : Yes, sir. If we can't get that we might as well 

 quit business. 



Mr. Perkins : What is the highest price you can pay for 

 stable manure for fertilizer, delivered on the ground? Do you 

 think there is any limit to the price of it? 



Mr. Gibbs : Yes ; I don't believe it will pay if it costs more 

 than $2.00 a ton, delivered on the ground. 



Mr. Perkins : They are paying a good deal more in the East 

 for it. 



