1G6 GARDEN PLANTS. PART IT. 



employed is to take a piece of large bamboo eighteen inches 

 long, and slit it in two; and having pointed the ends, drive 

 them into the earth, one close on each side of the Celery-plant. 

 The plant thus encompassed by the bamboo is earthed up. Some 

 place earthenware nuls over the plants for the same purpose. 



But with the adoption of either of these plans the plants are 

 very apt to decay. Sir J. Paxton says that earthing up much 

 impedes the growth of the plants, and that they should be 

 allowed to grow to maturity before this is resorted to, when it 

 takes about a fortnight to blanch them. I have myself acted 

 upon this statement, and found it result both in great advantage 

 to the plants and in the saving of a vast deal of trouble to the 

 malee. 



A more economical mode of proceeding, and one that I have 

 uniformly practised myself, is to dig a row of circular holes in 

 the ground, nine inches in diameter, a foot deep, and six inches 

 apart. Fill these with soil, well enriched with manure, to 

 within three inches of the top. Put one young plant in each, 

 and then proceed with the cultivation as above directed. 



Celery takes about six months from the time of the seed 

 germinating to attain its full size ; but for the table I consider 

 it preferable when taken up after about five months' growth. 

 In my opinion nothing whatever is gained by the attempt to 

 grow Celery of an extraordinary size ; as the great chance is 

 that when the vegetable is taken up it will be found overgrown, 

 unsound, and perhaps worthless. Or if this be not the case, at 

 least so much of the outer leaves will have to be cut away as 

 coarse and uneatable as to reduce the size to what it was a 

 month previous, when the whole plant would have been found 

 perfectly sound and of far finer flavour. 



Celery may be grown in India quite equal in quality, though 

 not, perhaps, in size, to any raised in Europe. 



For a succession crop a second sowing may be made about a 

 month after the first. The first sowing, however, will generally 

 supply as many plants as are required for the season. 



On account of the uncertainty attending the germination of 

 seed sown in August, some cultivators raise their seedlings at 

 the close of one Cold season and keep them on through the Hot 

 and Kain months, to plant out early at the commencement of 

 the following. This, however, I believe is almost needless trouble. 



