Farm Gardening with Hints on Cheap Manuring Part 7

The system of level planting is practiced by large growers everywhere.

Trenching is still followed in some private gardens, but is too expensive for commercial operations.

=Varieties.=--The so-called dwarf and half-dwarf varieties have pushed the larger kinds out of the market almost entirely, though seed of the giant sorts can still be obtained. The dwarf kinds are large enough for all purposes, however, and are in best favor everywhere. They are about 18 inches high, as compared to twice that height in the old-fashioned giant types.

The favorites of late years for early celery are the self-blanching sorts, such as White Plume and Golden Self-Blanching, which are the result of the continued selection of individual plants or sports showing a tendency to blanch easily. For winter keeping, the Perle Le Grand, Winter Queen and Perfection Heartwell are the best. These varieties are beautiful as well as highly palatable. There are also red or pink sorts, of high table merit and good keeping qualities.

CELERY.--We recommend Golden Self-Blanching and White Plume for early, Perle Le Grand for both early and late and Winter Queen for late. The latter is the very best keeper. See "Johnson & Stokes' Garden and Farm Manual."

=Cultivation.=--The proper culture of the celery has already been suggested in the allusion to its need for water and its shallow feeding habits. The surface soil should be highly enriched, the stirring of the soil very shallow, and the water supply copious, either by capillary attraction from below (as at Kalamazoo) or by rainfall or artificial irrigation.

=Blanching.=--The first step in the process of blanching or bleaching is what is known as handling. This operation consists in grasping all the leaves of a celery plant in one hand, while with the other the soil is drawn together and packed so as to hold the stalks in an upright, compact position. This single operation will fit some of the early-planted sorts for market in the course of two weeks; though a second operation, called hilling, is usually considered desirable, even with the self-blanching sorts. See photograph on first page.

The Kalamazoo growers depend on muck for field blanching, though they also use boards. Muck is merely a dark soil, containing or consisting mainly of vegetable matter. They first "handle," as just described, and about five days later draw 6 inches more of the muck about the celery stalks. Again, three days later, they draw an additional 2 inches about the stalks, and in two weeks from the start the celery is ready for market.

These operations are frequently done by two men working together, one holding the stalks and the other drawing the soil to them. The first operation puts the stalks in an upright, compact position, so that little or no soil can get into the heart of the plant. The second draws about the plant all the soil that will conveniently remain there. The third merely supplements the second, as the hill has had time to become somewhat firm and has settled away a little from the upper leaves.

Boards are used for summer blanching, as they are less heating than soil. Ordinary lumber, free from knot holes, is employed. The boards rest on their edges, one board on each side of the row, the tops being drawn together until within 2-1/2 inches of each other, and the lower edge of the board held in place either by stakes or by soil.

The work of handling or hilling must be done only when the celery is dry and unfrozen. In fact, celery must never be handled when wet (except when preparing it for market), or it will surely be rusted and spoiled.

The same practices of blanching celery as here mentioned in connection with the Kalamazoo operations are in vogue near Philadelphia and other Eastern cities, and are not new. The real reason that Kalamazoo is so celebrated is her possession of that wonderful black muck soil, underlaid with standing water. This has attracted the best celery growers of the country; men who have small places of from one to three acres, and who work out every detail to perfection, employing little labor outside of their own families and concentrating their efforts on the production of perfect celery crops. There are extensive celery growers at Kalamazoo, with tracts of thirty or more acres devoted exclusively to this vegetable, but the majority of the gardens there are small, and much hand-work is done.

=Winter Storage.=--The art of the winter storage of celery, as practiced by large growers, is not hard to learn. Both at Kalamazoo and here in the Eastern States there are two methods in vogue. One is the use of especially-built houses, and the other is the open-field plan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Blanching Celery with Boards.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Winter Queen, the Best Late Winter Keeping Celery.]

The celery house or "coop" is a low frame structure, half under ground, generally 14 or 16 feet wide, and as long as may be desired.

There is a door in one end and a window in the other. The sides, ends and roof are double and filled with sawdust. There are wooden chimneys or ventilators at intervals of 12 feet along the peak of the roof, and sometimes there are gla.s.s windows in the roof, provided with wooden shutters. The celery stands upon the floor, which is of loose soil.

There is a narrow walk lengthwise in the middle of the building, and boards extending from the central walk to the side walls separate the packed celery into narrow sections. No earth is placed between the celery stalks as they stand. They are, in fact, rooted in the soil of the floor, and are thus able to make the slight growth demanded for complete blanching. The various doors, windows and ventilators make it possible to keep the air fresh and wholesome, and during cold weather a stove may afford heat to the storage room. Artificial heat is not commonly required.

Another method, cheaper and quite as satisfactory, especially on farms or in market gardens, is to trench the celery in the open field. The situation of the trench must be a dry one, where there will be no standing water. The trench must be nearly or quite as deep as the height of the celery, with perpendicular sides, and a foot or less in width. The stalks are set upright in the trench, with all decayed or worthless leaves removed, as closely as they will stand, without soil between them. To keep them in that condition is purely a matter of care. If they are buried deeply and the weather proves warm they will rot. But if the covering be decreased in warm weather and increased in cold weather, the celery can be kept in perfect condition. In private gardens celery is often planted in double rows, a foot apart, and wintered where it grows by covering deeply with soil.

An excellent plan is to make an A-shaped trough of two boards to turn the rain, on top of which a greater or less amount of straw, leaves or litter may be piled, if needed.

Mice sometimes do considerable damage to stored celery, but are more easily controlled in short trenches than in long ones.

Small amounts of celery may be stored in cellars, in boxes a foot wide and a foot deep, with damp sand in the bottom. No soil is needed between the plants. The coolest and darkest part of the cellar is best for storage.

=Diseases.=--Celery diseases are preventable and insect attacks are few. For blight, kainit is recommended, both in the seed-bed and open field. For rust, the Bordeaux mixture is advised. Hollow-stemmed or pithy celery is the result of poor stock or improper soil, and can be avoided by the use of more manure and more water.

=New Process.=--The method of growing celery in highly enriched soil, with plants set 6 or 8 inches apart both ways, is quite feasible. The plants stand so close as to blanch each other to some extent, but the system has never attracted general favor. A great deal of water is required. Cultivation is possible only when the plants are small.

=Profits.=--The use of celery is obviously on the increase, but the demand is for a first-cla.s.s article. The cash results may be set at anywhere from $200 to $500 per acre. The actual net profits of well-conducted operations are considerable.

WATER CRESS.

Water cress, a vegetable closely allied to several other edible cresses, is used in very large quant.i.ties in all city restaurants. It is a much-esteemed winter relish, and is mostly served with every one of the thousands of beefsteak orders daily filled in the great eating houses and lunch rooms. The demand for it seems to be on the increase.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Water Cress.]

Water cress is of the easiest culture. It can be grown in the soil of a forcing house under gla.s.s, and is extensively produced in this way by market gardeners.

The cheapest method is to grow it in running water, preferably near a spring head; and many such situations are available to farmers. Flat beds, made of loam, gravel, or sand, covered with 3 or 4 inches of warm, spring water, will yield great quant.i.ties of water cress in early spring; and the use of a few sash will keep the cress in growth during the winter. The cress should be cut frequently, as the young shoots are most succulent and tender.

For market purposes the water cress is tied in bunches, and retailed at from 3 to 10 cents per bunch, or packed in pint boxes, leaves uppermost, and retailed for about 10 cents per box. These are winter and early spring prices. Water cress culture is profitable in favored locations.

CUc.u.mBER.

The cuc.u.mber market is not easily over-supplied, but the pickling tub should stand ready to receive all cuc.u.mbers not sold in a fresh condition.

For field culture, good ground must be selected, and marked out with a plow, 4 4 feet; or, a little wider, if the soil is strong. At least one shovelful of well-rotted manure is dropped in every hill, and mixed with the soil, and a dozen seeds planted, to be thinned out finally to three or four plants. It is better to have extra plants, on account of the attacks of the striped beetle.

The cuc.u.mber belongs to a botanic family which is naturally tender, and the seeds should not be sown until the soil is quite warm. For farm work, the planting season is the latter part of May and the whole of June; and even July is a suitable month, if the soil can be irrigated. It will require two pounds of seed for an acre.

The variety sown should depend on the purpose in view; but in all commercial operations, well-known and thoroughly tested sorts should be chosen. Shallow cultivation is recommended.

If an early market is to be supplied with cuc.u.mbers, the seeds may be started under gla.s.s, on bits of inverted sod or in small boxes, and set in the open ground on the arrival of settled warm weather; but the farmer will usually find it most profitable to sow the seeds where the plants are to remain.

The most serious enemy of the cuc.u.mber vine is the striped beetle, which attacks the young plant and frequently ruins it. The remedy is air-slaked lime, or soot, or sifted coal ashes, or wood ashes diluted with dry road dust. The best preventive is salt or kainit, used in the hills. The true plan is to have strong, vigorous plants, which, as a rule, will resist and outgrow the striped beetle, and be not greatly injured by its attacks. There is a blight which sometimes destroys the cuc.u.mber vine, apparently the result of weakness following a prolonged drouth.

The vine of the cuc.u.mber must be kept in vigorous growth, not only by cultivation and a sufficient water-supply, but by care in removing all the fruit as soon as formed, for, if the seeds be permitted to mature, the vine will quickly perish. It is the purpose of the vine's existence to produce ripe seeds, and it will make repeated and long-continued efforts to accomplish this end. In gathering the cuc.u.mbers, it is important to avoid injuring the vine. Some growers use a knife; others break the stem by a dexterous twist, without injuring the vine in the least.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Johnson & Stokes' Perfected Jersey Pickle Cuc.u.mber.]

It requires 300 cuc.u.mbers (more or less) of fair pickling size to make a bushel, and it is estimated that an acre will produce from 100 to 200 bushels, or even more. When the pickles are pulled while quite small, the number runs up to 125,000 per acre; and the pickle factories in some cases make their estimates on a yield of 75,000 per acre. The price is variable, but often quite profitable.

CUc.u.mBER.--For planting in the South to ship to Northern markets use Improved Arlington White Spine. Giant of Pera is a fine table sort. For pickling, plant Johnson & Stokes' Perfected Jersey Pickle. For description see our "Garden and Farm Manual."

=Downy Mildew.=--A disease which lately threatened to destroy the business of growing pickles in New Jersey and elsewhere, the downy mildew of the cuc.u.mber, can be fully overcome by spraying the vines with Bordeaux mixture. It requires six or seven applications, at intervals of a week or ten days, to conquer this comparatively new disease. Downy mildew is a fungous trouble affecting the leaves and destroying the further usefulness of the vine. A recent New York experiment showed a yield of $173 worth of pickles per acre under spraying as against complete failure where the Bordeaux mixture was not used. The cost of spraying was $9.50 per acre, leaving $163.50 per acre as the value of the crop saved by the operation.

EGG PLANT.

The advisability of growing egg plants in farm gardening operations is a question of location. On a suitable soil, near a good market, the operation will be a profitable one, if rightly managed. The egg plant is a tender vegetable, botanically allied to both the tomato and the potato, but less hardy than either, especially when young. For this reason it is best to delay sowing the seed, even in hot-beds, until cold weather is past, for the tender seedlings never fully recover from a chill or set-back. Indeed, for the farm gardener the month of May is early enough to sow the seed under gla.s.s, for this plant grows with great rapidity in a warm soil, and May-sown seed not infrequently yields plants that outstrip those sown a full month earlier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: New Jersey Improved Large Purple Smooth Stem Egg Plant.]

The egg plant demands a richer soil than either the potato or tomato.

It also asks for more water. It is a rank feeder. A good stimulant, if rotted manure cannot be had, is nitrate of soda at the rate of 400 pounds to the acre.

The farm gardener will do well to consider his market before engaging in the production of the egg plant on an extensive scale, for it is a perishable product. It bears shipment well, but its use is mainly limited to consumption while fresh. It may command a very high price at some seasons of the year and at other times be practically unsalable at any price, owing to an over-supply.

If egg-plant seed be sown under gla.s.s in early May, and carefully protected against cool weather (especially at night), the young plants will be ready to transplant before the end of the month and large enough for the open field in June. They should be set in rows 4 feet apart, and about 3 feet apart in the row. Set at these distances, an acre of ground would accommodate about 3,500 plants.