CULTURAL DIRECTIONS 
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in the season; the stahcs are also cut into short pieces 
and cooked, seasoned with cream and butter and served 
like salsify or asparagus. It is one of our most whole- 
some and palatable vegetables, although the nutritive 
value is not high. 
Thousands of cars of celery are grown annually in the 
muck soils of the large producing districts. The most 
extensive areas devoted to this crop are in the Great 
Lake region. Thousands of acres of muck lands are used 
annually for celery culture in Michigan, Ohio and New 
York. The industry has also become of great impor- 
tance in California and Florida. With the varied climatic 
conditions of the different states which are producing 
celery on a large scale, our markets are well supplied 
during most of the year. Eastern growers as well as 
western producers begin marketing in July or earlier and 
continue to supply the trade until January. Florida and 
California crops are ready the latter part of December 
and meet the demands until late in the spring. 
Intensive market gardeners of the North consider 
celery one of their most profitable crops, and with the 
overhead system of irrigation its culture is being rapidly 
extended. 
398. Botany. — Celery belongs to the family of plants 
known as Apiaceie. The botanists formerly classed this 
vegetable under umbelliferze. It is usually biennial, 
although, if seed is sown too early and the plants are 
checked in growth, they may produce flowers the first 
year This is sometimes a source of heavy losses in 
large plantations of early celery. The flower stalk is 
2 to 3 feet high, branched and leafy; the flowers are 
white, inconspicuous and borne in compound umbels; 
the seeds are very small and flattened on the side ; the 
leaf stalks are 6 to 15 inches long and bear three pairs 
and a terminal leaflet coarsely serrate and ternately lobed 
or divided. The wild plants have an acrid, pungent flavor. 
