76 JOHNSON & STOKES 
plenty of water, and skill is required in the two points of 
bleaching and storing. But there are no mysterious pro- 
cesses to be learned. The Kalamazoo growers have, it is 
true, a rare advantage in their deep muck soil, with a perma- 
nent water level only a few inches or feet below the surface, 
but their success depends on accuracy of working detail 
almost as much as on perfection of soil. It is not necessary 
to go to Michigan for good celery ground. 
Fertilizers. —The best known fertilizer for celery is 
thoroughly rotted barnyard manure. Fresh manure is to be 
avoided for several reasons. It is less available for plant 
food, more likely to produce rust, and more liable to open 
the soil and render it too dry. Commercial fertilizers are not 
infrequently used, but there is a decided preference among 
many celery growers for the rotted stable product. Shallow 
plowing (5 inches) is practiced, as celery roots do not go 
deep. 
Planting. — It requires from 20,000 to 35,000 celery plants 
to the acre, according to their distances apart. In the in- 
tense culture at the great celery centres two crops (and even 
three crops) of celery are grown upon the land per year, by a 
system of planting between rows, but in the operations of 
farm gardeners not more than one crop per season is grown. 
This may follow an earlier market crop, such as peas, beans, 
onions or sweet corn, though where the farmer is hard 
pushed with other work, the celery may be grown without 
any other crop preceding it, but not upon newly-turned sod 
land, as the earth should be loose and mellow. 
Seed for early celery must be started under glass, but the 
farmer will find Ijis best celery market in the autumn. April 
will, therefore, be ample time for sowing the seed, which 
should be scattered thinly in rows in finely-raked mellow 
soil in the open ground, and covered lightly. The seed is 
very slow to germinate, and the bed should be copiously 
