March 80, 1871. ] 



JOXJBNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



227 







WEEKLY 



CALENDAR 



t 















"o7 

 Month 



Day 



of 



Week. 



MAECH SO— APEIL 5, 1871. 



Average Tempera- 

 ture near London. 



Rain in 

 4S years. 



Sun 

 Rises. 



Sun 

 Sets. 



Moon 

 Rises. 



Moon 

 Sets. 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Clock 



before 



Sun. 



Day 



of 



Tear. 



30 

 31 

 1 

 2 

 S 

 4 

 5 



Th 



F 



S 



Snu 



M 



Tn 



W 



Meeting of Royal Society, 8.30 p.ai. 

 Cambridge Lent Term ends. 

 Oxford Lent Term ends. 

 6 Sunday in Lent. Palm Sunday. 

 Meeting of Entomological Society, 7 p.m. 

 Meeting of Zoological Society. 9 p.m. 

 Royal Horticultural Society, Fruit, Floral, 

 [ and General Meeting. 



Day. 

 63.7 

 55.3 

 65.0 

 67.8 

 67.1 

 56.7 

 57.0 



Night. 

 34.8 

 33.9 

 84.4 

 36.7 

 86.7 

 35.7 

 36.7 



Mean. 

 44.0 

 44.6 

 44.7 

 46.9 

 46.4 

 46.2 

 46.0 



Days. 

 19 

 18 

 21 

 21 

 20 

 17 

 21 



m. h. 

 4Saf5 

 41 5 

 83 5 

 36 5 

 34 5 

 32 5 

 29 6 



m. h. 

 28af6 

 30 6 

 81 6 

 83 6 

 3d 6 

 37 6 

 88 6 



m. h. 

 8 11 

 after. 

 16 1 

 82 2 

 51 8 

 12 6 

 35 6 



m. h. 

 Oats 

 41 3 

 17 4 

 47 4 

 11 6 

 83 5 

 53 5 



Days. 

 9 

 10 

 11 

 12 

 13 

 14 

 O 



m. s. 

 4 37 

 4 19 

 4 

 3 42 

 3 24 

 8 6 

 2 48 



89 

 90 

 91 

 92 

 63 

 94 

 95 



From obserrations taken near London during forty-three years, the average day temperature of the -week is 56.1°, and its night tem- 

 peratore 35.5°. The greatest heat was 78°, on the 3rd, 1848; and the lowest cold 16°, on the 1st, 1838. The greatest faU of rain was 

 1.19 inch. 



CELERY CULTURE. 



AVING seen such excellent Celery for sale 

 in DubUn, as well as grown in various gar- 

 dens near that city, I cannot believe, as 

 " OxE IN" Trouble " suggests, that there is 

 anything in the climate to prevent as good 

 Celery being obtained there as in the north 

 . of Ireland. 



As stated a short time ago, I do not place 

 [^the same value on large Celery as I used to 

 ! do ; I am more partial to serviceable sweet 

 heads.. A huge head is all very well if it is so sent to 

 table, but if the employer does not insist on its being sent 

 to him as it comes from the hands of the gardener, a head 

 as large as a man's thigh, when it appears at the table, 

 will be no larger than one the size of his wrist. I have 

 known some gentlemen so fond of the bottom part of Celery 

 just above the roots that they would allow neither butler 

 nor cook to trim it, but did all the cutting and trimming 

 themselves. I rather think the employer of " One in 

 Trouble " should do so, if he expects to be satisfied. I 

 am convinced that moderate-sized Celery is generally the 

 crispest and sweetest, and chiefly because it has not been 

 afforded an extra quantity of manure, nor any which was 

 rank and fresh, as such will always have a tendency to 

 affect the flavom- of the Celery. I have had some wonder- 

 ful heads to look at by making a sort of hotbed with 

 rank manure in the trench, and covering with 9 inches 

 of rotten dung and soil, but I will say nothing of the crisp 

 sweetness of such huge Celery. 



There are several remarks suggested by the letter of 

 " One in Trouble." First, if the soil in the field is of the 

 same character as that in the garden, he will not be likely 

 to succeed better in the one place than in the other. I do 

 not know what the subsoil after the first spit is, but if 

 hard and barren I would take out a portion,, loosen the 

 bottom, and then fill the trench to nearly the usual height 

 with sweet rotten dung and leaf mould mixed with the 

 best soil. It is of no use going deep into uncongenial soil. 

 I often find that late Celery succeeds best when planted 

 almost on the level, the soil along the side beiug banked 

 up to blanch it. The deep trench is of little use, except 

 as affording facilities for abundant watering ; but plenty of 

 water can be given if the plants are only a couple of inches 

 or so below the level. 



In the second place, I certainly should not use fresh cow 

 dung if I could obtain anything else. Very rotten hotbed 

 dung, or leaf mould somewhat rough and rather more than 

 half decayed, mixed with the best of the surface soil would 

 be much better. If even such dung is put into the trench 

 early, and turned and aired several times before being 

 mixed with the soil for planting, the Celery will be all the 

 crisper and sweeter. I like to have from 6 to 9 inches of 

 such hotbed manure and leaves mixed with about an equal 

 portion of the best soil. 



Thirdly, all Celery that grows freely, and especially 

 when loosely tied, wiU have a tendency to crack the out- 

 side leafstalks at the base ; but as these are generally 

 No. 522.— Vol. XX., New Sbeies. 



removed, and if used at all, used for soups, &c., that is of 

 less consequence. It would be well to see that your Celery 

 is not dressed over- much after it leaves you. I knew a 

 gentleman who came to his gardener to complain about 

 the smallness of the Celery, and was astonished when he 

 saw the fine clean blanched heads. He had never seen 

 more than a bit at the heart about 3 inches in length. I 

 hope your correspondent will succeed in pleasing his em- 

 ployer, but the task will be a diflficult one, if after thirty 

 years' experience of London he never obtained a good 

 head of Celery. What say the London market gardeners ? 

 I know that Celery, after being wilted at market and on 

 the stands, is very different from Celery taken at once 

 from the trench to the table. 



The disfigurement of the plants by worms and slugs can 

 be greatly obviated, first by mixing some quicklime with 

 the manure and soil in the trench sometime before plant- 

 ing, by watering with clear Lime water several times without 

 wetting the heads of the plants, and by using sifted ashes 

 round the plants at earthing-up time. 



Your correspondent is quite correct in his estimate of 

 the importance of shade, especially for the earliest crops 

 of Celery. It brings us at once to the main principle in- 

 volved in the cultivation of Celery. By cultivation and 

 the blanching resorted to we change the plant from an 

 acrid somewhat unwholesome vegetable into a sweet and 

 wholesome one ; but we do not and cannot so change its 

 mode of growth as to make a ditch plant flourish on the 

 exposed plain, or on the top of a dry mound. The Celery 

 naturally flourishes better on the side of a ditch, where 

 there is a little moving water than in the morass where 

 the water is stationary. Hence, though a Celery trench 

 can take abundance of water when the plants are growing, 

 these win not do so well nor be so sweet where the water 

 stands on a retentive bottom. The sides of the ditch it- 

 self, and the accompanying vegetation, furnish a certain 

 amount of flickering shade in which the Celery delights : 

 hence when rows and beds for early use are planted, it is 

 found that the Celery flourishes all the better with staked 

 Peas between the rows. Without them I use a little 

 artificial shade by means of laurel boughs, &o. Last year 

 I kept Celery — the earliest— alive and healthy with very 

 little water, by rather dense shading. Water here was 

 like so much costly wine. 



I also agree with " One in Trouble," and of course do 

 not agree with his employer, that good Celery cannot be 

 obtained without good decayed dung, or, as a substitute, a 

 careful application of liquid manure. When I want a 

 proof I just go back again to the ditch, and there, wherever 

 the Celery flourishes naturally, if we do not find much 

 depth of rich soil we shall find the stratum occupied by 

 the roots a rich one, however shallow the crust may be, 

 the richness being the result of the annual decay and de- 

 composition of grasses and weeds. I have had sweet heads 

 with very little manure, but unless I gave manure water-^ 

 ings freely the heads were small. 



Once more. The ditch, with just the least quantity' of 

 moving water, furnishes the whole key-note for the success- 

 ful cultivation of Celery, so as to keep it as a growing 



No, 1174.— Vol.XLV., Old SEBiEg. 



