864 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



namely, that lettuce, radislies. etc.. may be 

 grown nearly to matiii'ity in cold-fi'anies. Just 

 befoi'e severe weatiier comes on. ciovei' them 

 with glass and straw mats, and thus ke •]> them 

 lit for use during a great portion of tin' winter. 

 This can be done much ciieapiM- than to go to 

 the expens(> of heating, to grow them in the 

 winter time. I am quite sure, from what ex- 

 penence I have had in the line, that it can be 

 managed. Just now we have a fine crop of 

 beets, from the size of liens' eggs down. They 

 are as yet uninjured by the frost, but will soon 

 be injun'd witliout i)roiection. One of our boys 

 suggests that we gather them, cut the tops off, 

 and transplant them to cold-frames or green- 

 houses. A beet is a great thing to start to 

 grow, as you know. When tliey make nice new 

 tops, sell them off for bunch beets duj'ing the 

 winter tim(>. 



Caulifiower can, without question, be kept in 

 cold-fram(>s, the same as lettuce. Celery is so 

 commonly kept all through the winter montlis, 

 even into February and Marcli. tliat I have 

 hardly thouglat that any instruction was need- 

 ed. As so many inquire, however. I will tell 

 you what I know about it. 



KEEPING CELERY DISKING THE WINTEK. 



If you have only a little, put it into your cel- 

 lar in a box without top or bottom. Let this 

 box stand directly on the cellar floor. An earth 

 floor is best. The box may be as long as 

 you choose, but it should not be more than 

 a foot or 18 inches wide. If you get too 

 much celery in one body it is apt to rot. 

 Dig your celery, leaving considerable dirt on 

 the roots. Pull off most of the outside leaves, 

 and pack it in the box as closely as possible. 

 Your cellar should have plenty of doors and 

 windows, so tliat you can keep the temperature 

 pretty close to freezing. Celery will stand con- 

 sid(^i'abl(» frost in the open ground, but not very 

 much in the cellar. In its winter repository, 

 two things are to be guarded against — rotting 

 and freezing. Rotting is the worst trouble. 

 Keeping it cool, and giving it plenty of air, is 

 the remedy. If youi' cellar is so dry that tlie 

 celery is likely to wilt, and get lilve shoestrings, 

 you may moisten the roots: but do not put any 

 water on the tops. It will malve it rot. Some- 

 times a little cavity is made in the cellar bottom, 

 say two or three inches deep, and water is 

 poured into this cavity. This will keep it 

 growing some if your cellar is not too cold; but 

 if it grows much'in the cellar, it is likely to be- 

 come hollow and stringy. Now, putting up 

 celery on a large scale is just lilfe the above, 

 only, instead of the box, you can set up boards 

 a foot wide and 16 feet long. Keep them up 

 from the cellar bottom by means of pieces of 

 2\4 scantling laid at right angles with the long 

 boai'ds. This is to let enough air circulate to 

 pn^vent heating. When you want the celery to 

 blanch — that is, if it is not blanched when you 

 gather it — shut ol¥ the light and raise the 

 temperature until the celery is just right for tlie 

 table. Last winter we had some beautiful 

 celery wintered in a vacated pig-pen. Now, do 

 not smile nor turn up your nose. The pigpen is 

 under shelter, and is a i)art of our tool-liouse. 

 We cleaned it out nice and" clean, and dug down 

 perhaps a foot below the surface of the ground. 

 After it was packed away as above, between 

 long boards a foot wide, we covered tlie whole 

 top of the pig-pen with the same kind of one- 

 foot boards, and over these boards we put stable 

 manure enougli to keep the frost out. A good 

 deal of dirt adhered to the celery, and the dirt 

 in the bottom of tlie pig-pen made it so rich 

 tliat it grew some all winter, especially wlien 

 the heat of the manure above it raised the tem- 

 perature enough. The celery, when put away, 



was (piite green, and not blanched enough for 

 use. The variety is the N<'W Hose. The stalks 

 were a bright rose red when put away. In 

 -January the dai'kness and warmth had bleached 

 it so that it was i-eceived by everybody as n^hite 

 celery with an occasional rose tint to it: and it 

 was the nu)st ciisp and delicious celei'y I ever 

 tasted in my life. This year we have a cellar 

 under our new factory, about 40x100 feet, and 

 the door is so large tiiat a hoi'se with a mud- 

 boat can draw a load of celery right where it is 

 to lie packed betw(^en the lioards. A low sled 

 or mud-boat is perhaps as handy as any thing 

 to draw the celery from tlie held. Put it riglit 

 close to tlie rows, so tliat the men who pry out 

 tlie stalks \\itli tile spades can set them right 

 on the boat. A box should be placed on the 

 boat, made of boards, perhaps a foot high. A 

 common stone-boat will do, but it draws rather 

 harder than the I'ight kind of sled. 



Celery can be wintered outdoors in our locali- 

 ty in average winters; but as it is risky, it is 

 not generally to be recommended. If, liowever, 

 you think you will want to use it all by Christ- 

 mas, you can manage it this way: lianlv it up 

 clear to the very tips, then make a trough of 

 boards. Invert this over tlie row, and cover 

 with coarse strawy manure. This will keep it 

 till Christmas safely, and many times even till 

 spring. The objection is, the amount of labor 

 required for so small a quantity of celery at the 

 usual distance apart of planting. To save labor 

 you can dig a trench a foot wide, and, say, two 

 feet deep. Put a tile in the bottom of the 

 trench, to make sure tliat it does not get filled 

 with water. Now pack in your celery, just as 

 before directed, in the cellar. Earth up; put 

 an inverted trough of boards on top to keep off 

 the rain; put on your strawy manure, and it 

 will answer about as well as a cellar. The only 

 difficulty is. that you can not very well get at it 

 during very severe weather in the winter. It is 

 much handier, as you will readily see, when 

 stored in tlie cellar, as first directed: for in this 

 case you can put it on the market very quickly 

 whenever a good price is offered. A combina- 

 tion of the two plans is what is called a " celery- 

 house." Tliis is l)uilt anywhere outdoors, where 

 the groiind is so thoroughly drained, or stands 

 in such shape that water can not get inside. 

 Dig down two feet, throwing the dirt outside so 

 as to form walls. Put in your celery: cover 

 with any kind of rough cheap boards, or what- 

 ever is handiest, leaving just room enough to 

 stand up and go between the rows of celery. Have 

 a thermometer or thermometers hung in different 

 parts of the structure, and go around often with 

 a lantern, and see that the temperature does 

 not get below the freezing-point. If it were not 

 for getting around among the stuff witli a lan- 

 tern, to see how it is keeping. I would have a 

 roof within two feet of the tojjs of the celery. 

 Witli such a low structure there is less difficul- 

 ty in keeping the frost out: and if you are 

 young and small, so you can afford to stoop 

 down and crawl through tlie avenues, you may 

 make it low. Pack your celery in rows so that 

 you can reach any of it from some one of the 

 paths, to see whether it is freezing or rotting, 

 and put a board as directed, so tlie rows of cel- 

 ery shall not be much more than a foot from 

 one board to the next. Unless you do this it 

 will fall over and malve you trouble. It will 

 pay you to do this work decently and in order; 

 and if you plan it beforehand according to the 

 length of your lumber, there need be no cutting 

 or sawing, and tlie structure can be put up very 

 quickly. You can malve it so as to be perma- 

 nent, or you can pile your lumber up under 

 shelter during the summer time. If you are 

 going to mak(^ a permanent structure, however, 

 I rather think I would have it in tlie foi-m of a 



