668 SALADS. 



also in rich soil, about six inches apart every way. Those for the 

 earliest crop may be pricked out in a small hotbed, and transplanted 

 into a warm border ; but those for the others do not necessarily 

 require artificial heat. As the earlier crops of celery are very apt to 

 run to flower, and as this tendency in herbaceous plants, and espe- 

 cially annuals and biennials, is known to be checked and retarded by 

 destroying the tap-root, and encouraging the production of fibrous 

 roots, some excellent growers of celery adopt the following process 

 with their plants : The seed-bed, whether for an early or a late crop, 

 is formed of fresh, dark, loamy soil, mixed with old rotten dung, half 

 and half, and placed on a hotbed. The nursery or transplanting bed 

 is formed with old hotbed dung, well broken, laid six inches or seven 

 inches thick on a piece of ground which has lain some time undis- 

 turbed, or which has been made hard by compression. The situation 

 should be sunny. The plants are set six inches apart in the dung, 

 without soil, and covered with hand-glasses. They are watered well 

 when planted, and frequently afterwards. By hardening the soil 

 under the dung in which the plants are set, the root is formed into a 

 brush of fibres ; and by thus preventing the pushing of a tap-root, 

 the plant never runs to seed before the following spring. 



Transplanting into Trenches. Where the object is to have very large 

 celery, only one row ought to be planted in a trench ; but where a 

 moderate size is preferred, there may be two rows ; or the trenches 

 may be made four feet or six feet wide, and the celery planted in rows 

 across the trench, at the distance of a foot from one another, and six 

 inches apart in the row. Single trenches, when the object is to grow 

 celery alone, may be made in the direction of north and south, three 

 feet or four feet apart, centre from centre, and eight inches or ten 

 inches deep ; the soil dug out being formed into a ridge between the 

 trenches. As every trench is opened, dig into the bottom a coating of 

 five or six inches in thickness of thoroughly-rotted dung, and along 

 the centre of the trench insert the plants with a trowel, at six inches 

 apart. When the plants are being removed, previously to planting, 

 all side-slips should be carefully taken off. Where celery is to be 

 grown with other crops, as in simultaneous rotations, the trenches may 

 be made six feet or eight feet apart centre from centre, and a row of 

 peas for sticking, or some other crop of short duration, should be 

 grown between every two rows of celery. Where celery is to be 

 planted in rows across broad trenches, whatever may be the width of 

 the trench, a similar width must be allowed between them for con- 

 taining the soil dug out ; and these trenches should be made in the 

 direction of east-and-west, for the same reason that trenches for single 

 or double rows are made in the direction of north-and-south. To save 

 ground, the plants before they are planted in the trenches should be 

 kept in the nursery till they are six inches or eight inches high, taken 

 up with balls, any descending roots shortened, any suckers that may 

 have appeared removed, so as to throw the whole strength of the plant 

 into the central bud, or growing point. 



Blanching. Blanching weakens the plant by lessening the power of 



