Celery. 205 



our gardens its stringy, bitter parent, which still defiles some of our farms 

 as a vile and noxious weed. Cultivation does for plants what civilization 

 has done for man. 



The consumption of celery would be greatly increased if the impression 

 were not so prevalent that its cultivation is expensive. The old-fashioned 

 mode of planting it in trenches does make much work, and this mode is 

 still too common. A trench is no more necessary for celery than it is for 

 potatoes. Because celery grows wild by the side of ditches, it does not 

 necessarily follow that we must dig a ditch for it to grow in when reduced 

 to a cultivated state. On this principle we should need a mountain on 

 which to raise potatoes, as they grow wild on the mountains of Peru. For 

 many years we raised celery in trenches, because Roessle taught us thus to 

 do in his beautiful little book, and we knew no better : but, thanks to Peter 

 Henderson, we now practise a simpler and easier mode ; and it is for the 

 purpose of bringing this simple mode more generally before the public, 

 and thus making celery accessible to the multitude, that we are induced to 

 write. Mr. Henderson published, some two or three years since, his mode 

 of raising celery by surface-culture ; but, such is the force of habit, we find 

 in most gardens the celery still planted in trenches. We must, in passing, 

 do M. Roessle the justice to say that his little book was big with instruc- 

 tion, and did the country great service, backed up as it was by the most 

 beautiful celery we have ever seen, daily adorning the tables at the Delavan 

 House. Whoever has enjoyed the hospitality of this favorite hotel under 

 M. Roessle's care, and had his eyes delighted, his palate tickled, and his 

 whole body refreshed, with the beautiful and delicious white and pink 

 celery always found there in the greatest abundance, must have been con- 

 vinced that the landlord not only knew how to keep a hotel, but, what is 

 more, to keep a good garden; and must have felt stimulated to adorn his 

 home-table, and refresh his family and friends, with this delicious vegetable. 

 Certainly this was the effect on our better half; for, passing through Albany 

 many years since, she was so pleased with the looks of M. Roessle's table, 

 that she purchased his book, and presented it to us, which we took as a 

 hint to raise celery a la Roessle. We practised his mode for years, and 

 had good success ; but we always felt when digging the trenches, filling 

 them with manure and surface-soil, and turnpiking the bottom of the 



