1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 45 



answer to the question just asked in regard to marshes. I 

 am familiar with the swamp lands of Kalamazoo, which per- 

 haps is the place where the most celery is raised of any place 

 in the United States. The bottom land between the bluff 

 and the river is half a mile wide and is several miles long. 

 Kight years ago it could be bought for from ten to fifty 

 dollars an acre, within half a mile of the inhabited part of 

 the city. To-day you could not get it for three hundred 

 dollars an acre. It was an old cedar swamp. Through this 

 run streams coming from the bluff, and ditches have been 

 dug perhaps every forty rods or so ; and by putting down 

 planks a foot or two wide, you can dam the water back suf- 

 ficiently to keep the celery well watered. Fields of thirty 

 acres of celery are not uncommon there. Most of the land 

 about Kalamazoo of that sort is appropriated to the grow- 

 ing of celery. That swamp land has been cleared of roots, 

 and made so light that when you walk upon it it feels like 

 an ash heap. It is so easy to cultivate, and so light, that it 

 is exactly the place for raising celery. 



Question. I should like to inquire the best way to blanch 

 celery. 



Mr. Henderson. That question is one not very easy to 

 answer, there are so many ways now. We adopt the old 

 plan of planting it about four feet apart, and turning the 

 soil against the plants on each side with the plough. By 

 the way, they have a plough in Philadelphia made by the 

 Planet Jr. Company of that city, that they say (I have 

 not seen it) has lessened the work of planting celery to a 

 wonderful extent, but it has not yet got to New York. 

 When I speak of turning the soil with the plough, I refer 

 to the first blanching, while the plant is growing out in the 

 ground ; but for the great mass that is grown in the winter 

 we still adopt the plan of narrow trenches, putting it in 

 about the width of from nine to twelve inches ; and we 

 trench to the depth of the height of the celery, and cover 

 it up as the weather gets colder. In some sections of the 

 country, particularly in the vicinity of Rochester, they are 

 now getting large sheds especially adapted as houses for 

 growing it in winter. I think that is probably a better 

 plan. That is what we have adopted about New York, 



