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Show FOR GROWING CELERY Crop Requires Intensive and Painstaking Culture. In Production of Plants It Is Necessary to Have Well Prepared Seed Bed irrigation Is Also Essential Essen-tial Point. ' ;.' (By DR. LEOX IX BATCHELOK. Uuih Agricultural College.) It will hardly be possible wiihiu the space of this article to give one the detailed directions for growing celery. This crop requires a most intensive and painstaking culture, a very rich soil, the best surface tillage, and careful care-ful attention to the care of the young plants before setting In the field. 1 Celery is always a transplanted crop. The seeds are small and gr-. minate slowly and the seedlings are very delicate. An ounce of seed shou-ld produce about 2,000 good plants. Tils allows for several times that amou'iH of loss due to poor germination and weak seedlings. One pound of celery cel-ery seed should give enough strong plants to set four- or five acres. In the production of these plants, It is necessary to have a well prepared bed with a perfect surface tilth and it should retain moisture to the top. Preferably it should be protected froni hot and drying winds. Some persona prefer to have the seed bed partially shaded with lath or cheese cloth shades. If the shading is too dense,! the plants are likely to he soft, and' tender when taken to the field, and are billed by sunscald. It is advisable to have a shade which can be easily removed re-moved from the bed except on the very bright, drying days. Sometimes the bed is covered with boards or straw id order to maintain the moisture until germination has taken place. This may be advisable. If the covering is left too long the plants may make a Very weak and spindling growth and are consequently worthless. If this covering is used, it Is generally advisable advis-able to remove it gradually as the plants germinate. It is essential that the seed bed ,be bo located that It can be watered every evening if necessary. Care must be exercised that the watering is not so , )ieavy that it packs or puddles the v.Boil. , . . In order to secure stalky plants, they should be transplanted once or twice in the seed .bed, or they may be thinned thin-ned until they finally stand two or three inches apart. The labor of transplanting trans-planting is so great that many growers grow-ers prefer to secure stalky plants by thinning and then shearing off the remainder re-mainder of the plants when they have become too tall. The plants may be cut back one-third or one-half their growth by shears or sickle. ' ', Celery is grown as a short season .' crop, occupying land only part of the season. Therefore, it may follow such a crop as very early peas, early cabbages, cab-bages, radishes or bunch beets. It is also frequently handled as a companion compan-ion crop, growing two or three rowB pf onions between the rows of celery. In this case, transplanted onions are used, which will mature in time to use the space for blanching the celery. A thorough, shallow surface tillage should be maintained throughout the growing season, accompanied by sufficient suffi-cient irrigation to keep up a continual thrilty growth. If the plants are allowed al-lowed to be checked any time in their growth, even from ths'seed bed stage to the time they are half grown, difficulty diffi-culty will likely be encountered in the plants going to seed. Very early celery cel-ery may be set in the field any time as soon as the soil can be worked. However, there is very little demand for such an early crop, and the cost of production is considerable. The main crop for fall and winter consumption consump-tion is planted In the field from the middle of June to the middle of July. Celery must be crisp and tender and well blanched to be fit for use. Blanching Blanch-ing is accomplished by excluding the light. There are two common methods meth-ods of blanching celery in vogne at the present day; by the use of boards and banking up the earth. Blanching by means of boards is employed only, for (he early and summer celery; because protection from the frost must be supplied to the celery which remains In the field after the first of October, and the boards usually do not afford special protection. Use boards one foot wide and one inch thick and about 12 to 14 inches long. These boards are set on edge close against the crown of the plant, one on either side of the row, and the tops are tipped together so they are only two or three inches apart, or until they crowd against the plants. The boards are held in this position by cleats nailed across the top or by wire hooks. After the boards are thus placed, the soil can be worked up around the base to exclude all light by the use of a horse cultivator. This boarding may begin when the celery is tall enough to show a few of its leaves above the boards. The plants shoot up for light, making slender, soft stalks. Foliage Fo-liage tills the space between the boards and excludes the light from above and from ten to twenty days in warm growing grow-ing weather the celery may be blanched blanch-ed by this method. In any means of blanching in the summer one must see that the plants do not rot at the heart, as they are likely to do if they are too wet. Therefore, boarding or any form of blanching must be done when the plants are dry. If the plants are set three feet by four inches, there will be about 44.000 plants to an acre, and It will require j 29,000 feet of lumber to blanch them ' !f they are baked all at once. |