174 GARDENING FOR PROFIT, 



CELERY. (Apium graveolens.) 



I know of no vegetable upon which so much unneces- 

 sary labor is expended with such unsatisfactory results as 

 Celerv. Many private cultivators still think ic necessary 

 to dig out trenches, from six to twelve inches deep, 

 involving great labor and expense, and giving a crop very 

 inferior to that planted on the level surface, in the man- 

 ner practiced on hundreds of acres by the market garden- 

 ers in the vicinity of New York. 



Our manner of treating the Celery crop is now very 

 simple. Instead of sowing the seed in a hot-bed or cold 

 frame, which is the European plan, but not practicable 

 here (unless when on such soils as the muck deposits at 

 Kalamazoo, Michigan), owing to the tendency of plants 

 thus sown to run to seed, the seed is sown in the open 

 ground as soon as that is fit to work in spring here 

 about first week in April on a level piece of rich mellow 

 soil, that has been specially prepared by thorough pul- 

 verizing and mixing with short stable manure. 



I have had large experience in growing Celery plants, 

 as our demand for the plants often reaches 2,000,000 

 of plants in a season, and we never fail in getting a crop 

 by rigidly adhering to the following simple method. 



The bed being fined down by raking, so that it is clear 

 of stones and all inequalities, lines are drawn out by the 

 " marker" eight or nine inches apart, in beds of eight 

 rows in each, rubbing out every ninth mark for an alley, 

 on which to walk when weeding, etc. The seed should 

 be sown rather thinly, one ounce being sufficient for 

 twenty feet in length of such a bed, or about 150 feet of 

 row. 



The seed is sown by hand in the rows : after the sower 

 follows a man who evenly presses down the seed in the 

 drill with the feet. That done, the back of a rake is 

 drawn lightly lengthivise of the bed, which slightly cov- 



