9 8 



Commercial Gardening 



12. CELERY 



The cultivation of this vegetable (Apium graveolens) has undergone 

 a veritable revolution during the last twenty years. Time was when large 

 gangs of men might be seen in early morning or late evening in the 

 market gardens near London carrying water pots from which out of large 

 store tanks they watered the rows or beds of Celery. It was planted in 

 rows 5 ft. apart, up the middles of which a crop of early Turnips or Cauli- 

 flowers was taken. The plants had been raised on manure-heated pits, and 

 had been carefully pricked out and constantly watered. The cultivations 



were all done with the spade, and 

 from the time that the first spit 

 was drawn to the time it was 

 "closed" in, the cost of landing was 

 14 per acre. Where the method 

 of cultivation was in bed, the 

 mould was thrown out to the depth 

 of half a spit from beds 4 ft. 6 in. 

 wide, leaving alleys of the same 

 width. On the raised mould of 

 the alleys a crop of Radishes or 

 Lettuce was taken. The Celery 

 was planted in the beds in rows 

 1 ft. apart, planted crosswise with 

 plants 8 in. apart. The moulding 

 was done with boards secured at 

 each end in trough fashion, leav- 

 ing an aperture at the bottom for 



the soil to escape. The board was carefully placed between the rows, filled 

 with well-pulverized soil, and then lifted out, leaving the soil behind. 

 This operation was repeated until the requisite length was obtained, the 

 outsides of the beds being of course carefully landed up each time. 



The land for the rows or beds was prepared for the Celery by digging 

 in a good coat of manure. 



The crop thus grown was lifted in winter and taken into the packing 

 shed, railways often being used for the purpose, where the heads of Celery 

 were trimmed in root and leaf, washed, and bound into bundles of eight 

 heads to a bundle, the binder grading it as he went, into "best" and 

 "seconds". The bundles were packed in "barges" a basket now 

 unknown on the market, and which cost 10s. 6d. each each "barge" 

 took twelve bundles, and the price of the best was frequently 21s. the 

 twelve. Some growers took advantage of nearness to the Thames or other 

 stream to devise means of flooding the alleys of the Celery, and thus saved 

 the hand labour with the water pot. 



A little "bed" Celery is still grown by some market gardeners near 



Fig. 470. -Celery 



