194 GARDEN FARMING 



Seed production. Practically all the cauliflower seed of the world 

 is of European production. Efforts to produce good cauliflower seed 

 in the United States have been successful only in the Puget Sound 

 region of the state of Washington. Recent attempts at producing 

 high-grade forcing strains by seeding the plants in greenhouses 

 have proved very satisfactory, and open up the way for the main- 

 tenance of a high-grade forcing industry, which may be the solu- 

 tion of the cauliflower-seed problem for American field cultivators. 



Varieties. The Snowball strains of cauliflower are the best varie- 

 ties grown in America. The Dwarf Erfurt is a somewhat closely 

 related strain of much value. 



CELERY 



Celery is a garden delicacy of wide distribution. It is exten- 

 sively used for flavoring soups and dressings and for side dishes, 

 but it is not a standard vegetable in the sense in which potatoes, 

 cabbage, or turnips are standard vegetables. The crisp texture and 

 the nutty flavor of well-grown celery, together with the decora- 

 tiveness of well-blanched stalks, make it a favorite. Besides being 

 almost universally grown in the home garden, celery is exten- 

 sively cultivated for market in several localities which possess 

 peculiarly favorable soil and climatic conditions. 



Botany. Botanically, celery is known as Apium graveolens, 

 whose native habitat is the moist lands bordering the Mediterra- 

 nean Sea. It is a biennial plant producing long, thick leafstalks 

 and a fairly large root stalk. Naturally the leafstalks are green in 

 color, tough, and bitter to the taste ; but by careful cultivation and 

 selection the wild plant has been modified into two important 

 forms one with thick, fleshy leafstalks less bitter to the taste 

 than the wild plant, and the other with a thick turniplike root 

 stalk. This latter form, known as celeriac, is not widely cultivated 

 as a field crop, but is grown to some extent in gardens and is 

 chiefly used to flavor soups. 



Celery does not normally produce seed until the second year, 

 but sometimes plants will be found throwing up seed stalks the 

 first season. This can usually be explained by faulty handling, 

 wrong cultivation, or poor seed. 



