88 CELERY CULTURE 



in Prussia, Denmark, and England has given very 

 unsatisfactory results, frequently one-half of the 

 plants being either hollow, pithy, or untrue to type. 

 A strain of French-grown celery seed known as 

 Gilt Edge or Originators Golden Self-blanching has 

 frequently shown a trueness to name and type of 

 IOC per cent. As a rule the price of first class 

 French grown seed is considerably higher than that 

 of American seed, but, for the present, it is well 

 worth the difference in cost. American-grown seed 

 of White Plume and also of a number of the large 

 growing green varieties appears to be giving as 

 good satisfaction as any other. 



During recent years a number of experiments 

 have been conducted at the Maryland station to 

 determine the cause and remedies for pithiness in 

 celery. ^ In all of these trials the plants grown from 

 French seed gave the lowest number of pithy, hol- 

 low, and green stalks, no imperfection wdiatever 

 being found in several cases. In these experiments, 

 shading and several special cultural features were 

 introduced, but it was clearly shown that the fault 

 was primarily with the methods, or lack of methods, 

 in growing the seed. Seed grown from pithy plants 

 produced as high as too per cent, of similar charac- 

 ter, while that from solid plants gave a large per- 

 centage of perfect type. Many thousands of seeds 

 are produced by a single plant, and one pithy seed 

 plant in many would be sufficient to lower the grade 

 of the entire lot of seed. 



1 Maryland Agr. Expr. Sta. Buls. Nos. 83 and 93. 



