AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
135 
gjortialtral flejartment. 
To IIokticulturists. — Our weekly issue of 
so large a journal, gives us ample room to devote 
to the different departments of cultivation, and 
we have commenced with this volume, to allot a 
separate space to Horticulture. We have secured 
additional efficient aid in its conduction, and we 
invite horticulturists generally, to send in their 
contributions on all subjects interesting and in¬ 
structive to those engaged in similar pursuits 
with themselves. We are receiving the leading 
foreign and domestic horticultural journals, and 
shall be abundantly able to bring promptly be¬ 
fore our readers all that transpires, which may 
be new and useful. 
CELERY. 
A correspondent from Trenton, N.J., inquires 
the best method for cultivating celery, the soil 
adapted to it, and the best time of setting the 
young plants. As we have cultivated this deli¬ 
cious vegetable for seven years, with very good 
success, we give him the results of our experi¬ 
ence. It requires more attention than most 
other vegetables, and the growing of good cel¬ 
ery is a much more difficult matter than its 
preservation. The chief difficulty about it is to 
attend to its wants often and seasonably. 
If you wish early celery, you must sow your 
seed in March, in a hot-bed, and put out your 
plants in the trench in June, or early in July. 
If you only care for it late, sow in May, in the 
open ground. Select a moist, rich spot for your 
seed bed, thoroughly prepared. The finer the 
tilth of the mold, the better your seed will ger¬ 
minate. An old mat, thrown over the bed, or 
any light covering of grass or weeds, will aid 
the sprouting. The covering should be removed 
as soon as the plants are well up. As soon as 
the plants are up an inch high, they should be 
pricked out, in a bed of rich mold, thoroughly 
prepared. A compost of muck and night-soil, 
or muck and hen-dung, is a very good manure 
for the bed. The plants should be set in drills, 
six inches apart, and four inches in the drill. 
You cannot have good strong plants without 
pricking out. They should be kept free from 
weeds, and the soil should be stirred once a 
week, until August. 
The selection of a suitable spot for the 
trenches, is a matter of considerable importance. 
As celery needs a good deal of water, select a 
spot as near the watering-place as possible. 
Your soil should be two feet deep, and if there 
is not that depth of black loam, you must pre¬ 
pare it in the trenches for the occasion. You 
may prepare your trenches for growing two or 
four rows, as suits your convenience. If for 
two rows, the trenches should be 18 inches 
wide and 18 inches deep. 
We have tried various kinds of manure, 
feathers, hair, night-soil, &c. We have obtain¬ 
ed the best results from night-soil, well mixed 
with loam or charcoal dust, but we attributed 
this to the fact that it was used in larger quan¬ 
tities, rather than to any superiority in the ma¬ 
nure. The hog’s hair, though used in small 
quantities, gave satisfactory results. But al¬ 
most any manure will do, if it be thoroughly 
incorporated with the soil in the bottom of the 
trenches. If you use stable dung, the trenches 
should be filled at least six inches with it, and 
thoroughly worked into the soil with a fork. 
Junius Smith, in the Patent Office Report, 
gives the following directions for setting out the 
plants in the trench. “ The plants should be 
trimmed about the crown, just at the top of the 
root; all the young suckers taken off, leaving 
the plant trim and neat, with all its main stalks. 
With a dibble, which should be as large as the 
handle of a spade, as the roots will now be 
of considerable size, begin at one end of the 
trench, with your face toward the other, and set 
out a single row of plants in the middle of the 
trench, and not less than six inches asunder; 
water them well. No teetotaller loves water bet¬ 
ter than celery. It cannot have too much. 
The roots of this plant require more room than 
is generally allowed them, as any one may see 
when they are taken up for the table. 
“ Earthing up the plants should be delayed 
until they have attained a good size; and then 
it requires care, especially the first time. I al¬ 
ways get into the trench myself, and holding 
the plant with all its stalks in my left hand 
firmly, with a short-handled small hoe draw the 
earth up around the plant, without allowing it 
to come in between the stalks. When this is 
done, and the plants thus protected, you may, 
with a spade, strike off the edges of the trench, 
and partially fill it. As the plant grows, con¬ 
tinue to earth up, and by the first of November, 
the plants will be two feet above the level of the 
earth, and of the size of a man’s arm.” 
Celery is sometimes attacked by a small fly, 
but this enemy is best avoided by watering 
freely. We have never noticed a diseased plant 
in our garden, and we attribute this to the wa¬ 
tering more than to any thing else. Our celery 
trenches stand close by a ditch in which salt 
water flows, and we have found that watering 
with the brine once a week gave them great 
luxuriance. We have grown plants a yard long. 
Wherever a garden is near the shore, it will be 
worth while to try the experiment of salt water¬ 
ing. It is a marine plant, and must have salt in 
some shape, in order to attain perfection. It is 
a good plan to put salt into the compost for the 
trenches. Either of the following composts will 
be found effective in the trenches. 
1st. Well decomposed stable manure, with 
ten gallons of strong brine, to each half cord. 
2d. One cord of peat turf, meadow muck, and 
wood’s earth, which has been decomposed by 
the salt and lime mixture, (three bushels of lime 
slacked in water saturated with salt,) with one 
hundred pounds of Peruvian guano, thoroughly 
mixed ten days before using. 
Celery is a delicious vegetable, and makes an 
agreeable variety upon the table during winter 
and even into spring. Its use is chiefly con¬ 
fined to cities, because it requires some little 
skill to grow it, and gardeners in the suburbs 
can make it a paying crop. It might be culti¬ 
vated with advantage in every garden. 
As to the preservation of celery—if you live 
near a market, it is best to leave it with the 
market-man, buying only as you use it. We 
have tried various methods of keeping it in a 
celler, but have never succeeded well. Some 
recommend banking it in moist sand, and this 
will probably succeed as well as any thing. If 
you grow the article yourself, you can keep it 
best in the trenches, taking out a supply for two 
or three weeks as you wish it. The trench you 
design to use first, before the ground freezes 
solid for the winter, will be sufficiently protect¬ 
ed by a covering of sea weed, or refuse straw, 
a foot thick. That which you wish to preserve 
till January, and later, should have a little 
house made over it. If your earthing up is not 
too high, two wide boards set upon their edges, 
on each side of the plants, and then inclined 
until they meet at the top, like a letter A, will 
answer very well. We have fine celery pre¬ 
served in this way, at this date, May 1st. The 
tops arc somewhat shortened by the frost, but 
the core is perfectly sound. 
BROOKLYN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The Semi-Annual Exhibition of this large 
and flourishing Society takes place at the Athe¬ 
naeum, (corner of Atlantic and Clinton streets,) 
on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this 
week. The exhibition will be first opened to 
the public, at 3 o’clock, P. M., on Wednesday, 
and continue open on the following two days, 
from 7 A. M. to 10 P. M. We unhesitatingly 
recommend every lover of good vegetables, fine 
plants, and rare and beautiful flowers to visit 
this exhibition. 
This Society, though young, already numbers 
four or five hundred members; and they have 
thus far shown a spirit and enterprise worthy 
of commendation, and of imitation by other so - 
cieties. From what we can learn, we judge that 
this exhibition will equal, if not far exceed, any 
similar exhibition yet held in this section of the 
country. 
BONES IN THE GARDEN. 
We are, every season, discovering fresh evi¬ 
dence of the great value of bones as a fertilizer. 
We have to-day, been removing some pie plant, 
seedling of the Victoria, that were set out with 
bones under them last spring. The roots had, 
in many instances, completely penetrated the 
bones, so that they were lifted with the roots. 
They help the formation of small fibrous roots, 
and make the growth of the plants very vigor¬ 
ous. In removing a grape vine last season, we 
noticed the same fact. We now consider bones, 
or their equivalent, as indispensable in the gar¬ 
den. We put from a half to a whole bushel in 
every hole in which we set a fruit tree. The 
season of tree planting is not yet over; and we 
would say to our friends, make your holes broad 
and deep, and use bones liberally, if you would 
have a quick growth and fine fruit. 
-• • «- 
An Imperial Bouquet. —A bouquet to be 
offered by the Horticultural Society of Toulouse 
to the Empress of the French, was exhibited 
there on Sunday, at the capitol in the Salle du 
Trone, where a vast crowd went to see it. Not 
less than 10,000 violets and 300 camellias have 
been employed in this gigantic boquet, which is 
2i feet in diameter by 3 feet high. It is com¬ 
posed of a dome of violets surrounded by a cir¬ 
cle of camellias, garlands of these last running 
down the dome, on which are to be seen the 
initials of her Majesty in orange flowers. A 
blue riband, also having the cipher of her Ma¬ 
jesty, ties the stem of the bouquet. This beau¬ 
tiful object left Toulouse on Monday, and was to 
be presented to her Majesty on Wednesday, by 
M. Duplan, member of the Legislative Body, 
President of the Horticultural Society of the 
Haute Garonne. 
