84 
Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming. 
Celery is most profitable in soils and situations that suit its 
growth. Well-grown, well-blanched, short-eating celery is 
always a most saleable commodity. The cultivation requires 
much care and involves considerable expense, and is perhaps, 
as it may be thought, more suited for market-gardeners than for 
farmers, but there is no reason why it should not be more largely 
grown in farm gardens and for market purposes. There are 
market-gardeners near London who grow as many as 50 acres 
of celery. The seed should be sown first in frames with a little 
heat, towards the end of February, from whence the plants are 
put out into rows 5 feet apart, with a few inches between each 
plant. Quantities of well-rotted manure must be put on before 
the plants are put into rows or trenches, which should be dug 
out to a depth of from 1 foot to 15 inches. When the plants 
are about 16 inches high they should be earthed up slightly. 
After a short interval they should be earthed up again, and this 
must be repeated until the earthing-up is completed. Celery 
may be planted after cabbage, or broccoli, or early lettuces, and 
the plants are put in early in May. 
Marrows and Cucumbers are grown upon market-garden 
farms, but their culture is somewhat hazardous, though they do 
not remain long on the ground. The least frost, or too much 
wet, injures the plants. Some growers sprout the seeds in 
flannel, but this renders them delicate. The seed is put in rows 
4 to 5 feet apart, early in May. The plants are rarely trans- 
planted where cucumbers are grown on market-garden farms. 
There are special kinds of cucumber for growing in the open 
air, and upon ridges, among which are the Early Short Prickly, 
Sutton's Perfection, Rabley Prolific. Between the rows a drill 
of rye is put in as a shelter. Occasionally scarlet runners are 
grown between the rows to serve as a protection. These cucum- 
bers make from 3^. to 4*-. per barrel ; from 175 to 200 barrels 
are grown per acre. 
Tomatoes are not grown nearly so much as they should be ; 
the taste for this vegetable is increasing rapidly, both for eating 
raw, according to the American fashion, or for boiling or baking. 
They thrive well under the protection of buildings, and there 
are many neglected corners and borders near farmhouses and 
farm-buildings where tomatoes would flourish, protected from 
fowls and other creatures by galvanised wire-netting. Plants 
may be obtained by sowing seeds in shallow pans or boxes in 
March and April, and transplanting into pots, and finally, when 
large enough, they should be topped and planted out. The great 
thing in the cultivation of tomatoes is to keep pinching off the 
heads continually and to cut away all secondary shoots on which 
no flowers are forming. Or five or six seeds may be sown towards 
