THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 12. 
i 
: 94 
Now, supposing a stranger, after tasting our nice, 
| crisp Celery for the first time, am.1 then being taken out 
to see its well banked-up state in the garden, would lie 
not he inclined to form and carry into practice the 
opinion, that this banking-up was indispensable in its 
cultivation, without ever imagining that growing the 
Celery, and then preparing it to be fit to eat, were two 
processes altogether different ? This is just the simple 
causo why so many people are yearly disappointed with 
their Celery,—find all their early plants, after all their 
trouble, only fit for soups, and must be content to wait 
until the end of autumn before they get nice, crisp, 
unbolted heads for salad, and for cheese. In fact, they 
wait, we do not say patiently, until the lessening in¬ 
fluence of heat and light, and the decrease of evaporation 
from the foliage, as a consequence, prevent the stimuli 
I being applied to the plants, which, in summer and 
autumn, would have led them at once to throw up their 
piping flower-stalks; alike the result of the resolution, 
' that even then they would continue their race, and the 
! effort to be revenged for the unnatural banking-up to 
| which they had been subjected. 
Hence it is that we safely bank-up as the cold days 
j and nights come, so far as making the plants show 
their flower-stalks is concerned, and protect them from 
frost, and secure blanching by the same operation. 
But, can such a system be successfully followed in 
| July, August, and September? We say generally—No. 
! And having grown very early Celery in our time, and 
moderately early now, with scarcely such a thing as one 
run-head in our early rows, we do attach more im¬ 
portance, as respects an early supply, to the simple 
difference between growing and preparing, than to any 
times or modes of sowing or planting, having sown in 
December, January, February, and beginning of March, 
| with a similar result; only that the first sowing involved 
; very much more labour, space, and attention, to prevent 
: unnecessary checks before planting-out time came. 
We wish those amateurs, who are the least sceptical, 
to examine for themselves a nice young plant of the 
rough-looking, harsh-tasting, if not poisonous, Smallage, 
the progenitor of all our best garden Celeries, as it 
grows, if not in the bottom, by the side of a marshy 
ditch, with its roots as moist as may be, and within 
easy distance of the sea breeze. The first thing he 
notices, is that this Smallage imbibes water pretty freely, 
and taking this important natural hint, he resolves that 
the offspring, Celery, shall not want for the water-pot, 
and have a small handful of salt in it too, now and then, 
. .just to prevent its being home-sick. And in this ho is 
perfectly right, for Celery, during the whole growing 
season, is never injured by wet, if it does not stagnate 
about the roots, and if the water is slightly saline, now 
and then, it will be in its favour. 
But now, however much he may admire bis plants to 
look at, he knows they are uneatable, and, therefore, he 
wishes, by blanching and excluding light, to change the 
flavour, so that it will be wholesome and sweet as a nut. 
He has achieved a similar result by covering up Sea- 
kale, but he cannot adopt a similar process with Celery, 
I 
because that has not such reservoir roots as Sea-kale; 
Celery not being, like the Kale, a perennial; and the 
great thing is to blanch and use the young leaf stalks 
before the flower-shoot appears. If we covered the 
whole plant from light we should get insipidity, if not 
decay, instead of sweetness. The great thing, therefore, 
is, especially for early work, to keep the growing and 
blanching process going on simultaneously. Wo, there¬ 
fore, expand the top of the plant to air and light; we 
keep the lower part of the plant rather dry, if possible, 
and shut it out from light, it matters not how, by tying 
it up as a Lettuce, causing it to grow through a pipe, 
wrapping it round with a cloth, or with straw-bands, or, 
as is generally done, surrounding it with a mound of 
earth. Any one of these plans will do, provided we 
take the teaching of nature, and never let the roots 
become dry, so long as there is a strong sun to evaporate 
moisture. 
Now let us visit the wild plaut on the side of the 
ditch again. You know it is a biennial; you know 
that extra stimulus and extra checks are used every 
day to give biennials the character of annuals; you 
know that water is so dear to the Celery that the want 
of it would be a great check; and, notwithstanding all 
this, when you set about blanching this wild plant, the 
first thing you do is to open a great trench to dry up 
the natural ditch, during the scorching of an August or I 
September sun! 
Now, absurd though it may seem, this is the exact 
counterpart of acting out the advice—“Keep putting a 
little earth to the Celery, a few inches at a time,” so 
far as good Celery is to be bad in August, and the be¬ 
ginning of September, and the finer and stronger the 
plants, the greater the danger. We will notice how it 
acts. We will suppose that you water the Celery before 
you begin to earth up; so far, well; by degrees, the I 
mound rises from twelve to eighteen inches in height, ! 
several showers have fallen in the meantime, but not a 
i 
drop of that can find its way to the roots, though the 
fine foliage has been refreshed ; but a fortnight of warm, 1 
unclouded weather comes,—think what a quantity of 
moisture these huge leaves have thrown off in that time 
by evaporation. Whence came it ? Try a row for j 
table use. Much of it bolted again? Examine the 
roots. Oh, they are so dry ! Just so ; the evaporation, j 
the dryness, and the bolting, are cause and consequence, 
provided no great checks had previously been given. 
As many will now be pricking out and sowing their 
Celery, wc prefer giving these ideas now, that our 
friends may have time to con them over. We believe 
them to be true in theory; we know them to be bene¬ 
ficial in practice. Many amateurs, who have received 
the hint, completely take the laurels from us with early 
Celery. With this slight matter unnoticed, the culture , 
of Celery has been treated in a first-rate manner in these 
pages. 
But how blanch with earth, without these continuous ■ 
earthings? Simply thus. The plants before and after ; 
planting are cleaned from suckers; as they grow strong 
they are tied up separately, loosely at first, and if that 
