Smallage. Apium graveolens.

Celery, or Smallage, is a hardy, umbelliferous, biennial plant, growing naturally "by the sides of ditches and near the sea, where it rises with wedge-shaped leaves and a furrowed stalk, producing greenish flowers in August." Under cultivation, the leaves are pinnatifid, with triangular leaflets; the leaf-stems are large, rounded, grooved, succulent, and solid or hollow according to the variety. The plant flowers during the second year, and then measures from two to three feet in height; the flowers are small, yellowish-white, and are produced in umbels, or flat, spreading groups, at the extremities of the branches; the seeds are small, somewhat triangular, of a yellowish-brown color, aromatic when bruised, and of a warm, pleasant flavor. They are said to retain their germinative powers ten years; but, by seedsmen, are not considered reliable when more than five years old. An ounce contains nearly seventy thousand seeds.

Soil.--Any good garden soil, in a fair state of cultivation, is adapted to the growth of Celery.

Propagation.--It is always propagated by seed; one-fourth of an ounce of which is sufficient for a seed-bed five feet wide and ten feet long. The first sowing is usually made in a hot-bed in March: and it may be sown in the open ground in April or May; but, when so treated, vegetates slowly, often remaining in the earth several weeks before it comes up. "A bushel or two of stable manure, put in a hole in the ground against a wall or

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