126 



Salad Crops 



broken apart, linear, with the very slender often whitish 

 beak about % in. long (beak sometimes broken off in commer- 

 cial samples), black, smooth, grooved on inner face, weighing 

 about 1 to 1% mg. ; vitality 1 to 3 years. (The word Cere- 

 folium is an old substantive signifying "pleasant leaf.") 



CELERY 



Cool, very rich and moist land well supplied with vege- 

 table matter, deep preparation, the best surface tillage and 

 the most careful attention to all care of the plant, are req- 

 uisites of good celery culture. It is always a seed-bed 

 crop. It may be treated as a succession- or companion-crop, 

 although it mostly is the sole occupant of tlie land in any 

 season. It is hardy, ivithstanding light frost if properly 

 handled. The leaf-gtalks, which are the edible parts, are 

 blanched; allowance must be made for the blanching oper- 

 ation by luide spacing between the rows. The crop must 

 be stored from freezing if kept in winter. 



Celery is planted 6 to 12 inches apart in the row. The rows 

 vary from 2 to even 6 feet. Sometimes the rows are double, 

 the two being 6 in. apart. In the self-blanching system, the 

 plants are set 6 to 8 or 10 inches each way ; at 7 x 8 in., about 

 112,000 plants are required to the full acre. There is usually 

 much loss in seeds and young plants, and it is therefore advis- 

 able to sow the seed very thick. One ounce of seed to 200 feet 

 of row in the seed-bed is a liberal allowance. Some gardeners 

 estimate 2,000 good plants from each ounce of seed, but this 

 allows for an unusual amount of loss. An ounce should give 

 5,000 to 10,000 good plants, after allowing for several times 

 that amount in loss. One pound of celery seed should give 

 enough strong plants to set four to five acres. In single-row 

 planting 6 in, apart, and the rows 5 ft., as in earth-banking, 

 more than 17,000 plants stand on a full acre. The yield from 



