Celery

a garden vegetable belonging to the parsnip family. Unlike many of its relatives, celery is cultivated for its leaf stems, which are eaten with salt or used to flavor soups and salads. We can hardly call celery an article of food, though thousands of tons are raised under improved methods. Celery is on the market the year around. Celery grows wild in England and southern Europe, but it is unfit for table use. Garden celery originated in Germany. It is started and set out and cultivated not unlike cabbage. It does best in moist, peaty soil that has been ditched and subdued thoroughly by pulverizing and the addition of the plant food that is lacking in peat beds.

The knack of celery cultivation lies in "blanching." At the proper time the celery stalks are shut off from light, either by means of boards, heavy paper, or by hilling them up with earth. As a consequence the celery turns white and tender like potato sprouts in a dark cellar. Any one can raise celery that can raise cabbages; but not everyone knows how to blanch it successfully. Old peat swamps and skill have made Kalamazoo, Michigan, a noted celery center. In 1905, the banner year, Kalamazoo shipped over $2,000,000 worth of celery. During the shipping season, which lasts ordinarily from July to February, from thirty to sixty tons of celery are shipped daily. The reputation of Kalamazoo as "the celery city" is due to industrious Hollanders, who brought the art of gardening with them from their native country.

Michigan-grown celery has the highest reputation in the Middle West. Not all "Kalamazoo" celery is grown at Kalamazoo. There are other centers. A tract of land fifteen miles west of Grand Rapids is classed as one of the most productive celery regions known. An old bog some fifteen miles long and perhaps half a mile wide has firm clay sides, and seemingly no limit as to bottom. The soil is a rich black muck. V. H. and Z. celery, so named from the three neighboring stations of Vriesland, Hudsonville, and Zeeland, is raised here. A cooperative association of celery raisers has been formed. There were in 1908, 141 members. An agent ships the celery in crates to Chicago wholesalers. In the year named, 35,000 crates, 57 carloads, were shipped by freight, and enough more was shipped by express to bring the total for the year to 150,000 cases. The price in Chicago varied from $1 to $1.15. From 150 to 300, and even as high as 500, cases are raised per acre.

See Vegetables