KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



deemed any favour on the other side. Your plants being 

 ready, about the middle of July, perhaps, make the 

 trenches a foot deep and afoot wide, and put them at not 

 less than five feet asunder. The ground that you make 

 the trenches in should not be fresh dug ; but be in a 

 solid state, which very conveniently may be -, for celery 

 comes on just as the peas and early cabbages and cauli- 

 flowers have gone off. Lay the earth that you take out 

 in the middle of the space between the trenches, so that 

 it may not be washed into them by the heavy rains ; for 

 it will, in such case, cover the hearts of the plants, and 

 will go very nearly to destroy them. When you have 

 made your trench, put along it some good rich compost 

 manure, partly consisting of wood ashes. Not dung ; or, 

 at least, not dung fresh from the yard ; for, if you use 

 that, the celery will be rank and pipy, and will not keep 

 nearly so long or so well. Dig this manure in, and break 

 all the earth very fine as you go. Then take up your 

 plants, and trim off the long roots. You will find, that 

 every plant has offsets to it, coming up by the side of the 

 main stem. Pull all these off, and leave only the single 

 stem. Cut the leaves off so as to leave the whole plant 

 about six inches long. Plant them, six inches apart, and 

 fix them, in the manner so minutely dwelt on under the 

 article CABBAGE, keeping, as you are at work, your feet 

 close to the outside edges of the trench. Do not water 

 the plants j and, if you plant in fresh-dug ground, and 

 fix your plants well, none of the troublesome and cum- 

 brous business of shading is at all necessary ', for the plant 

 is naturally hardy, and, if it has heat to wither it above, 

 it has also that heat beneath to cause its roots to strike 

 out almost instantly. When the plants begin to grow, 





