——. 
| the water which it requires. 
782 
In all cases, before they are boiled, the fibres of 
the roots, which are very strong, are cut away ; 
and the root is put in cold water on the fire, not 
Im-water previously boiled.” 
The soil suitable for the cultivation of celery, 
requires to be rich, moist, and friable, in a situa- 
tion quite unshaded by trees or fences; it ought 
either to be exuberant with manurial matter, 
from excess or remains of manuring through a 
series of preceding years, or directly manured, 
not with rank dung, but with vegetable com- 
post; and it must be deeply trenched, made 
thoroughly porous, freed from stones, and worked 
into intimate commixation of its manurial with 
its earthy ingredients. “As in its native state,” 
remarks Mr. Towers, “celery is found in moist 
places, it is very probable that, in the general 
mode of culture, it does not receive one half of 
I have not wit- 
nessed the practice of floating; but it would be 
well worth while to compare the results of two 
trenches in the same soil and aspect, one being 
floated to saturation during dry weather, the 
other treated in the ordinary manner. I would 
suggest that an ounce or two of common salt be 
dissolved in three gallons of soft water, and 
poured in the watered trench twice a-week. It 
' has been said above, that celery affects spots 
| near the sea; therefore salt may be useful to it. 
_I employ salt continually in the garden, and, I 
believe, with good effect.” 
All the varieties of celery are raised from seed. 
| Half an ounce of the seed of any of the upright 
_ varieties is sufficient for a bed ten feet long, and 
four feet and a half broad. The seed must be 
very lightly buried, either by moderately raking 
it in, or by covering it with fine earth. Sowings 
may be made at different periods, so as to afford 
a succession for use throughout the longest pos- 
sible period of the year. A first sowing may be 
made, in March, on a slender hotbed or on a warm 
border ; a second sowing, for main crops, may be 
made in the end of March or the beginning of 
April, in an open bed; and a third sowing may 
be made in the end of April or the beginning of 
May. The seedlings of all the sowings must be 
transplanted ; and they ought to be removed 
in such succession, according to their strength, 
as to afford a regular or unfluctuating series of 
matured plants for use. When those of the first 
sowing attain the height of two or three inches, 
some of the best may be pricked out, and set in 
nursery-beds, to acquire strength. A few of the 
earliest, in order to be gently forced, may be 
planted, at two or three inches distance from one 
another, on a moderate hotbed ; others may be 
planted in open-ground beds of four feet wide, 
in rows six inches asunder, and at distances of 
three inches from one another in the row; and 
those remaining in the seedbed will grow more 
strongly on account of being thinned, and may 
either, at two or three successive times, be 
pricked out into beds, or allowed to acquire 
CELERY. 
strength where they are, and transplanted di- 
rectly into trenches. All the seedlings pricked 
out into beds must receive water in their new 
situation, and must be permitted to remain there 
during about six weeks before their final trans- 
plantation. 
At successional periods of every two or three 
weeks, from June till October, plants of from six 
to twelve inches in height, must be transplanted 
into trenches. An open compartment of rich 
ground should be selected for the trenches, cleared 
from weeds, and marked out, with the line and 
the spade, into pieces three or four feet asun- 
der, and each a foot in width. Each piece should 
be scooped into a cavity of the depth of a middle- 
sized spade ; the soil removed from it should be 
laid, to the right and the left, on the wide spaces 
between the trenches, and there made even; and 
the bottom of the trench should be lightly dug, 
—or, if it have poor soil, it should first be over- 
spread with some rotten dung, and then dug. 
The plants selected for transplantation should 
have their straggling tops and long roots trim- 
med ; and should be planted, by dibble, ina single 
row, along the middle of the bottom of each trench, 
at distances from one another of four or five 
inches. Water should be copiously given imme- 
diately after the transplanting; and if the wea- 
ther be dry, it should be occasionally repeated 
till all the plants fully strike root. The princi- 
pal after-culture consists in successive earthings- 
up of the plants, every week, fortnight, or three 
weeks, till, in technical phrase, they become com- 
pletely “landed.” The first earthing up must be 
done when the plants have grown two or three 
inches in the trenches; and must consist in a 
gentle accumulation of soil around them, to the 
height of about three or four inches, according 
to the several height and strength of the plants. 
The soil which was thrown out of the trenches 
should be used in the earliest earthings ; and 
afterwards the svil of the wide spaces between 
the trenches; the earthings should be continued 
till they attain a height of from 12 to 24 inches, 
according to the growth or variety of the plants; 
and all the winter crops ought to be well landed 
up, to near their tops, in October or November. 
Some of the earliest plants will be partially 
blanched, and may be taken up for use, in the 
latter part of June and throughout July; but 
the main crops will not be properly blanched till 
August, and will be in prime condition in Sep- 
tember, and thence till the end of winter. The 
latest crops for spring use, transplanted in Sep- 
tember and October, require trenches of only five 
or six inches in depth, and may be planted in 
mere drill trenches, formed in properly dug 
ground. 
Judd recommends a method of culture consid- 
erably different from the old and ordinary one 
which we have detailed. He sows about the 
middle of January, on very rich ground, in a 
warm situation ; he protects his seed-beds, during 
