The Canadian Horticulturi^ 



Vol. XXXVIII 



APRIL, 1915 



Ni. 



A Specialist's Success in Celery Culture 



TORONTO consumes one-half of a 

 carload of celery every day. A 

 considerable proportion of this is 

 raised near Thedford, Ont., although 

 celery is shipped in also from different 

 points in Ontario and from points in the 

 United States including Kalamazoo, 

 Michigan. The best celery, however, 

 for the Canadian market is our own 

 Canadian-grown product. 



Thedford is about forty miles east of 

 .Sarnia on the Grand Trunk main line to 

 Toronto. The leading celery grower of 

 the district is Mr. J. W. Powell. Eighteen 

 years ago Mr. Powell was a veterinary 

 surgeon at Thedford. He was not alto- 

 gether satisfied with his prospects, and 

 when a land company offered him a farm 

 for nothing down and so much a year 

 for a few years Mr. Powell took it. 



It came about like this : Some years 

 ago a big land company thought they 

 saw a chance to make some quick and 

 easy money by draining a swamp known 

 as Lake Burwell, situated near Thed- 

 ford, and selling the rich swamp land 

 to truck gardeners. The scheme looked 

 so promising that they put dredges in, 

 and at a cost of eight thousand five hun- 

 dred and twenty dollars drained the 

 water into Lake Huron, a mile and a 

 half away. Having drained the land, 

 the next big item was to sell it, and Mr. 

 Powell was the first man to see the pos- 

 sibilities in the rich muck bottom of the 

 old swamp. 



MR. POWELL'S START 



After straightening up his affairs, Mr. 

 Powell found that he had a trifle over 

 one hundred and nine dollars in cash. 

 It was with this limited capital that he 

 went down into the old swamp to start 

 cleaning his one hundred and seventy- 

 one acre farm. He worked hard all 

 spring and managed to get a trifle less 

 than an acre cleared, and planted to 

 celery sprouts and about a quarter acre 

 to onions. The celery grew fine all 

 summer and promised to be a big crop 

 for the first year, but in the early fall a 

 heavy frost came and all the result of 

 the hard work done was a blackened and 

 wilted mass by noon the next day. The 

 •season's work was gone, the hundred 

 dollars gone, and the onions were of 

 little value, but Mr. Powell's courage 

 w:is still there, and he decided to Stick 

 to it and try again, 



J. C. Intnan, Eden, Ont. 



The next year saw about an acre and 

 a half planted in' good time carefully 

 tended and harvested, and for the first 

 time some real money was realized. The 

 next year there were three acres, the 

 next five, and the next seven, and so on 

 up until two years ago, when eighteen 

 acres were successfully planted and har- 

 vested. Last sea.son at least twenty 

 acres were grown. 



THE LAND REQUIRED 



It takes very productive land to grow 

 celery. Only such land as old lake bot- 

 toms and marshes is strong enough to 

 grow it in suflicient quantities to make 

 it profitable. The muck land in the old 

 Lake Burwell marsh is from three to 

 seventeen feet deep, and for productve- 

 ness is unexcelled. Mr. Powell used to 

 grow onions, cabbages, cauliflowers, 

 potatoes, and other less profitable crops 

 before he found the science of celery cul- 

 ture in which he now specializes. 



Celery growing, as Mr. Powell con- 

 ducts it, is much like growing tomatoes 

 or potatoes, only it is more profitable. 

 As soon as the frost is out of the ground 

 the land is thoroughly disked both ways 

 and eight hundred pounds of complete 

 fertilizer is applied per acre. It is then 

 harrowed until the field is perfectly level 

 and has every appearance of a large 

 truck garden plot, only the soil is very 

 much blacker and more productive look- 



ing. The celery beds in which to start 

 the seeds are made about April ist, and 

 the plants are kept well watered and 

 tended to until about the middle of June, 

 vvhen it is usually safe to set them out. 



Transplanting is done on the hands 

 and knees, and the young celery plants 

 are set in rows four inches apart. A 

 marker or a long line is used to make 

 the rows and the planter follows the line 

 on his hands and knees, sticking the 

 plants into the soil and pulling the earth 

 up around them. Almost continuous cul- 

 tivation is kept up until the middle of 

 August, when Bleaching is started. The 

 plants are ready for the market in twenty 

 or thirty days. 



Bleaching is brought about by push- 

 ing the earth in the rows up around the 

 celery stalks with a sort of miniature 

 snow plow, which is pulled down be- 

 tween the rows by a horse. It is neces- 

 sary to go down the rows several times 

 during the late summer and early fall 

 before bleaching is completed, or until 

 the celery is earth packed enough to be 

 able to withstand the early frosts. 



The celery is usually all harvested by 

 November loth. Mr. Powell stores over 

 two-thirds of his crop. A carload f)er 

 acre is considered a fair crop. This 

 means that from twelve to fifteen car- 

 loads must be packed away during the 

 month of October and the first part of 



A Ten Acre Field of Celery That Speak* For It»eW 



Mr. J. W. Powell, of Thedford. Out., is <>ue of the leading oelery irrowera of 

 Powell's methods are deecribc-d in the article on tJjis page. 



Canada- Ht. 



