A field of Schneck's Florida Golden No. 15 celery at Sanford, Florida, with three single plant selections from this 
field to produce pure line stock seed in cloth covered cages. 
Important Information About Kilgores Celery Seed Stocks 
The above illustration shows a typical field of Schneck’s 
Improved Florida Golden No. 15 celery at Sanford, Florida. 
From fields such as this, a few of the very best and most ideal 
plants, similar to the three illustrated above, are selected for 
stock seed development. These selected stock seed plants are 
expressed to our celery breeding grounds in the west where 
they are planted. Each individually selected plant is enclosed 
before blossoming in a muslin covered cage, illustrated above, 
in order to prevent the blossoms from being pollinated by 
those from another plant. A little seed from each of these in¬ 
dividual progenies is then tested in Florida, and the best pro¬ 
genies are planted in succeeding seasons in the west for the 
production of celery seed for Florida growers. This laborious 
and expensive method of maintaining and improving our cel¬ 
ery seed stocks is repeated year after year, and explains 
why Kilgore’s celery seed is being used so extensively by 
Florida celery growers. 
Our celery trials are conducted on one of the celery farms 
in Manatee County, Florida, where we test our stocks in com¬ 
parison with many others in order to make certain that our 
stocks are at least as good as the best when grown under Flor¬ 
ida conditions. 
All our celery seed-growing fields are under controlled ir¬ 
rigation in the West, where experience has proved that the 
climate is better adapted for the production of strong-ger¬ 
minating celery seed than anywhere else in the United States. 
Our western grown seed is always larger and of higher vital¬ 
ity than celery seed grown in other sections, because the 
climate under which western-grown celery seed ripens and 
cures is uniformly dry. 
Furthermore, we do not force the growth of our seed 
plants, making them produce in a year’s time by starting the 
seed plants in Florida during the winter, then shipping them 
North where they are forced into seeding in order to harvest 
the crop before frost. Our experience has indicated that this 
method of producing celery seed, which is quite common, re¬ 
sults in small, weak-germinating seed, producing plants of 
low vitality with a tendency toward hollow-stemming and the 
production of early seeders. Our seed plants grown in the 
West are made to produce seed the second year. This is done 
by holding the plants with very little water for several months 
after they have made their growth but have not started to de¬ 
velop seed stalks. This is the natural way celery plants should 
develop seed and accounts for the lack of weak plants, early 
seeders, and hollow-stemming in plants produced from our 
western-grown celery seed. 
Our seed-growing fields are carefully inspected several 
times each season to eliminate all green sports, green heart, 
early seeders, and plants which are not true to type. Short 
ribbed plants and those developing poor hearts are destroyed, 
and seed is saved from only the most desirable plants. You 
owe it to yourself to plant these improved stocks. Why take a 
chance on such an expensive crop as celery, when you can get 
seed which has been tested and proved under Florida condi¬ 
tions and with which you are taking no risk? During the past 
ten years, we have specialized in celery seed, each year mak¬ 
ing our own selections of stock seed plants in Florida, select¬ 
ing a few of the very best plants out of thousands in the 
growing fields. It costs a great deal to produce this kind 
of seed, but it is worth more to plant. 
12 
For Best Results Plant Kilgore's "Bred-Rite" Seeds 
