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Celery Culture. 
BY M. D. DUMBELL. 
In my last communication I promised 
that further on in the season I would give 
you my experience and also that of some 
of my neighbors in celery growing. Not 
that I have anything new to impart 
about the early stages of its growth, but 
what I have to say mainly concerns the 
handling and blanching of the plants. 
About the 1st and not later than the 10th 
of April, I prepare a bed in a part of my 
garden where the sun will shine on it all 
day, and make the soil very fine, and it 
should also be very rich. I then sow the 
celery seed on the surface of the bed, pat¬ 
ting it down with the back of a bright 
spade, then as my soil is heavy and liable 
to bake I sprinkle the bed over with clear 
sand, and water profusely with a watering 
can that throws a fine spray, and if the 
weather is dry, water every day and some¬ 
times twice a day. 
In my opinion most of the failures to 
raise good celery plants come from the fact 
that proper attention is not given to water¬ 
ing the seed beds, both bofore and after the 
plants make their ajipearance. Next to 
good seed watering is of prime importance. 
It sometimes happens that some of the 
plants grow faster than others; when such 
is the case, I shear them off so as to have 
them uniform. Towards the end of June 
I prepare the ground where I want the 
plants to grow and perfect themselves, but 
never manure it only in the winter or early 
spring. Where I want the celery to grow 
I sow dwarf peas four feet apart in the row, 
and transplant the celery plants between 
each row of peas; when the peas are taken 
off the ground the rows of celery stand 
four feet apart. As soon as I have trans¬ 
planted the celery, if dry, I water copiously, 
keeping the soil clean and mellow. About 
the middle of August some of the plants 
will be large enough to handle, and here is 
something I have to tell which I have never 
yet seen in print. All the essays on celery 
culture that I have read, say you must in 
handling them keep the soil out of the 
heart of the plants, but none of them tell 
how to do this. Do what I would, in draw¬ 
ing up the earth to one plant the soil would 
run dowm into the heart of the next one, 
especially if the ground w T as dry; at last 
I overcame the difficulty in this way: I 
took the half of a head of a nail keg and 
made sharp the straight edge, then I com¬ 
menced at the head of a row of celery; 
gathered up the leaves and stalks of the 
first plant into my left hand; then insert¬ 
ed the piece of wood, edge down, between 
the first and second plant; drew up the 
soil with my right hand apd transferred 
the plant from left to right and did the 
same with the left hand. Before I touch 
the board I gather up the second plant like 
the first, then move the board between the 
second and third plants, repeating the op¬ 
eration on the second plant as before, and 
so on to the end of the row. By this 
method not a particle of soil gets into the 
heart of any of the plants. 
So far I have never blanched my celery 
in any other way but by spading the soil 
up against the plants as high as I could get 
it to stay. 
Now I will give the experience of two 
of my neighbors in blanching their celery. 
One of them tells me that in three weeks or 
so after handling them, he gets boards that 
are 12 inches wide and 16 or 18 feet long 
and puts them up on edge on each side of 
the row of celery, driving down stakes to 
hold them upright, throwing a little soil 
against the boards to keep them from 
being blown down. As the leaves of the 
celery make their appearance above, he 
raises the boards a little, and he tells me 
he never fails to blanch his celery well 
this way. The other neighbor, last year 
and for the first time, used drain-iile to 
blanch his celery; he happened to have 
the tiles on hand and concluded to try the 
experiment; he said he succeeded admir¬ 
ably. The tiles are 12 inches long and 4 
inches in diameter in the aperature. In¬ 
stead of handling the plants, this man says, 
he gathered up each plant and slipped a 
tile over it, and when he had them all done 
he threw a little soil against them to keep 
them in their place. When the leaves of 
each plant had grown out from the tiles he 
raised the tiles a little pushing the soil 
uuder to hold the tiles up. Now it may be 
