1874. ] 
A CHAPTEE ON CELEEY-CULTUEE. 
63 
plant by extraordinary treatment, yet it will assert its right very often, “ cry 
back ” to the original character, and assume the normal type. Few plants 
exhibit this more than the Celery, for although it has been picked out of its 
muddy ditch and placed on dry land, and there compelled to behave itself in an 
artificial medium, and produce a healthy crop instead of its native poison, still 
its green tops are unconverted, and are as deadly as ever if taken in large doses, 
whilst its radical leaf-stalks when blanched are a great luxury. It has not, how¬ 
ever, depend upon it, lost its longing for its native element, and when it can get 
water enough and dung enough, it will do well; but to water Celery at 
any time as one would water a Eose-plant, would be like “ a tub to the whale.” 
I once had the opportunity of watering Celery by having the trenches on a slope, 
a supply of water running down every trench; and not only did the Celery do 
well, but the character of the plants seemed altered ; they grew chubby, and not 
so tall as usual, and although complaints were made of their looks, there was no 
complaint of their fiavour. In the same way, we find Watercress, when grown'on 
dry land, quite changed in flavour from the same plant when grown in water ; 
and the Pontederia crassipes^ which has only a plain foot-stalk when grown on 
dry land, develops a bladder wherewith to float when grown in water. The Celery 
that has been grown in a garden has parted with its green colour and with its 
poisonous character. It is therefore evident that plants whose native habitat is 
water, behave differently when grown on dry land ; the pressure of the two media 
upon the tissues must necessarily be different. Now if the Watercress had been 
always grown in dry earth, and some one had just found out that it would be 
milder in flavour if grown in water, and lose much of its brown colour, or in 
other words, get blanched more or less, what an improvement this would be upon 
the bitter herb when it is grown on dry land. 
The Celery which I have eaten this winter has been by no means large for 
Lancashire Celery, but its flavour and its creamy whiteness I have never seen 
surpassed. Whatever progress Celery makes in dry weather is of an unnatural 
character, and tending toward the “ sticks ”; but in hot wet weather the 
materials are ready to build up . the natural tissues. Celery may be drawn 
(etiolated) just as readily as a Pelargonium, and the eatable portion of the leaves, 
although long and white, and even crisp, are then sadly deficient in firmness and 
flavour. 
Our scientific men bring forward the case of the Pontederia to show that 
plants and eke animals are creatures of circumstance, and that they adapt them¬ 
selves to the situation. Now at the collar of the Celery-plant, there is a core with a 
nutty flavour, and above the collar there are the radical leaf-stalks, blanched and 
wholesome, in fact, a luxury ; but between the collar and the green leaves pass all 
the juices that make the green leaves deadly and their foot-stalks wholesome. 
This change in our favour is obtained by skilfully hiding the leaves from the 
light by degrees ; and when this can be done without deranging Nature’s plan of 
still growing the Celery as nearly as possible as an aquatic, the treatment will 
