606) Eistory of Celery. [July, 
now some of our varieties, such as the Boston market, are of a 
very delicate taste, far different from the sort spoken favorably of 
by Townsend in 1726 as very hot and very slow growing. 
It is probable that some original variation in quality discovered 
in the wild plant suggested cultivation, for among a people like 
the Italians, with whom high aromatic taste seems popular, the 
strong savor of the smallage would present little objection, if 
only grateful to them; or that its use was suggested by some 
popular idea of its value as a medicinal food, as seems probable. 
That there is ‘great variety in wild plants in respect to flavor, we 
have every reason to believe. Smallage, described by most bot- 
anists as a suspicious if not dangerous plant for eating, yet in 
Fuegia was found palatable and healthful by the sailors of the 
exploring ships,! and in New Zealand described by Forster’ as 
truly pleasant and salutary for scorbutic sailors. The use in 
Italy as a medicinal food, and the introducing to garden culture, 
with blanching, etc., would improve the flavor and. increase. its 
use, and improvement once initiated and recognized would neces- 
sarily continue, and stability of type-form would also tend to 
continue, as the seeding habits of the garden plant is not favora- 
-ble to cross-fertilization with the wild or allied species, it being a 
biennial, and not usually seeding alongside of other species with 
which crosses might occasionally occur. 
We have now in celery an improved, not changed, wild p 
which does not now tend to revert to the wild form, as it see 
to have done at the first, and a good illustration of the fixity of 
a garden form species. The present form will undoubtedly COR: 
tinue unchanged for a long period, unless cross-fertilization W! 
another species-variety is brought to pass. It would be of gar- 
den interest to grow and cross the species-forms from different 
portions of the globe with our garden varieties, as analogical 
= Feasoning would suggest possibilities as yet unsuspected 1 
Practice. | 
lant, 
med 
a _ Ross, ke Cook, L c 
PIRU 
