268 



CELEBIAC 



CELERY 



ways. It may be boiled and eaten with a white sauce, 

 like cauliflower ; as a salad, either first being cooked 

 as beets or turnips, or else cut up into small pieces and 

 used raw ; when boiled, sliced and served with oil and 

 vinegar, it forms the dish known as "celery salad." An 

 extract may be obtained from it which is said to have 

 ■certain medicinal properties. jj. p. Gould. 



CELERY [Apium graveolens, Linn.). Umbelliferw. 

 Annual or biennial plants: leaf-stalks 6-15 in. long, 

 bearing 3 pairs and a terminal leaflet, all of 

 which are coarsely serrate and more or less 

 ternately lobed or divided : flower stalk 2-3 

 ft. high, branched and leafy, bearing nu- 

 merous rather small compound umbels of 

 inconspicuous white flowers: fruit small, 

 flattened on the sides, broader than long. 

 -An ounce contains between 60,000 and 

 70,000 seeds. 



Celery is known in America only as a 

 garden vegetable, and is cultivated mainly 

 for the leaf stalks, which are blanched and 

 ■eaten raw with salt, made into salads, or * t S 



boiled and served like asparagus. Celery ' ^ v ' 

 roots, leaves and seeds are also used in fla- I 

 voring soups, meats, etc. The garden form 

 resembles wild celery, which grows over a 

 wide range in Europe and Asia, but the 

 plants are less acrid and pungent and the 

 leaf-stalks are much larger and more meaty and solid. 

 Ancient writers left little definite information about this 

 plant, and it is doubtful if its cultivation as a staple gar- 

 den vegetable really began until after the Middle Ages. 

 Previous to that time it does not appear to have been 

 •clearly distinguished from parsley, which was mainly 

 -used at funeral ceremonies, and not at all as a salad 

 plant. It is supposed that the Selinon mentioned by 

 Homer in the Odyssey was wild celery, and it has also 

 been stated that Diosoorides distinguished between the 

 wild and the cultivated forms of this plant, but later 

 writers were singularly silent about garden celery until 

 the seventeenth century. In 1629 Parkinson wrote that 

 "sellery" was a rarity in England. It seems to have 

 been introduced there from Italy, where its cultivation 

 as a garden vegetable probably began. In 1699 John 

 Evelyn wrote of "sellery "as Apium Italicum, and de- 

 scribed it as a hot and more generous form of Mace- 

 donian parsley or smallage, which, he stated, for its 

 high and grateful taste was ever placed in the middle 

 of the Grand Sallet at the great men's tables and 

 PrsBtors' Feasts as the grace of the whole board. Dur- 

 ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries celery was 

 frequently called smallage in England and ache in 

 France, but now these names have fallen into disuse. 

 Until about 1850 celery was grown in trenches ; later 

 level culture was gradually adopted. For 20 or 25 years 

 following 1850 celery was used almost entirely as a win- 

 ter vegetable. The plants were only partially blanched 



The demand for earlier celery increased after 1875 or 

 1880. The introduction of two new kinds of celery a few 

 years later, namely the White Plume and the Paris 

 Golden, both with distinct self-blanching tendencies, 

 gave a fresh impetus to the cultivation and the con- 

 sumption of early celery. These new kinds were more 

 attractive as table decorations, and they were also more 

 easily grown and blanched than any varieties previously 

 cultivated. Soon after their introduction boards began 

 to be used in the place of earth in blanching early 



395. Celery planted thick, and the patch edged with 

 boards. 



in the field, then lifted and placed in trenches or celery 

 pits, where they remained until the blanching process 

 was completed, being taken out from time to time dur- 

 ing the winter. Celery is reported as naturalized on the 

 coast of southern California, and as escaped from culti- 

 vation in southeastern Virginia. 



^^^-^-^-'* 



m^^'^ 



396. The last earthing-up of Celery. 



celery. This proved a decided advantage to growers 

 because the rows could be from 2K to 3 feet apart in- 

 stead of 4 or 5 feet, as was necessary before, and also 

 less labor was required in earing for the crop and pre- 

 paring it for market. With the new varieties and im- 

 proved methods of blanching, early celery began to be 

 grown on a large scale after 1885, and now large markets 

 are supplied with Celery throughout the entire year. 



Starting! the Plants. — Celery seed is usually sown 

 in frames where there is but little artificial heat. The 

 seeds germinate slowly, and the seedlings require about 

 three months after the seed is planted to mature suffi- 

 ciently to be set in the field. Sowings for the early crop 

 begin in January, and those for the late crop about the 

 middle of March in the northern states. The seed is 

 sown broadcast, and when the plants are large enough 

 to handle they are transplanted into other frames, being 

 set 2 or 3 inches apart each way. The soil in these 

 frames, and also where the seed is sown, is made very 

 fertile, to insure a strong growth 

 of both roots and foliage. After 

 being transplanted the plants 

 are allowed to remain in the 

 frames only long enough to 

 send out a new set of roots and 

 leaves. If for any reason the 

 plants remain in the frames too 

 long, they often go to seed pre- 

 maturely when set in the field. 

 This is mush more likely to oc- 

 cur with the early than with the 

 late crops. 



Field Cdltubb. — Moist, 

 peaty soil la preferred, but cel- 

 ery is successfully grown on 

 clayey and even sandy soils, 

 when these are highly fertilized 

 and irrigated. Level culture is 

 now generally practiced, the old 

 method, in which plants were 

 set in single or double rows in 

 trenches (Fie. 397) being nearly 

 obsolete. The plants are set 

 from 6 inches to a foot apart in the rows, and the rows 

 from 2^ to i^A feet apart. Early and late varieties are 

 often set in alternate rows. Boards are used to blanch 

 the plants that mature first, and when these are out of 

 the way there is room to bank the remaining rows with 

 earth (Pig. 396). 



Celery plants are also set 7 or 8 inches apart each way 

 in beds. This method requires intensive culture. The 

 plants must be frequently fertilized and copiously 

 watered during their growth. In this case the crowding 

 of the leaves ia sufficient to blanch the stalks of the 



397. The old method 

 of growing Celery 

 in trenches. Plants 

 are sometimes stored 

 for -ndnter in such 

 trenches. 



