THE STORY of Kalamazoo and its celery fields can scarcely be told in space less than a goodly sized book.

Celery seems to be the crop predestined by nature for the utilization of our marsh meadows and tamarack swamps, and if our Hollandish population were not designed for the same end, yet Hollanders and the celery crop have made the lair of the venomous massasauga into miles of smooth and fertile gardens.

Kalamazoo is situated on a burr oak prairie, in the valley of the Kalamazoo river, and the marshes are on three sides of the city. These marshes are crossed by cold and clear streams making into the river at this point.

No word picture can do justice to the view of our valley city as it appears from the ranges of hills on the east or westward. The park-like city in the center, peering at a thousand points through the heavy mass of foliage, all this edged on three sides by hundreds of acres of beautiful fields, striped with velvety black and satiny green that shimmers in the summer sun and breeze, looks far more like a fairy garden than a financial investment by the heavy-footed natives of far-off Holland.

But why did celery come to Kalamazoo ? The answer is, We had the peculiar soil, the right climate and the Hollander. Celery was only the missing link ; that, when found, put us in ever increasing correspondence with the outside world.

Well, what of it? What has it done for Kalamazoo ? Let us see. It brings in a round half a million of money every year ; solid shekels, not stock in one or two capitalists vaults, not money that has to go to the great importing houses of the eastern cities, but it is carefully laid away in the old stocking, some of it, and the rest goes for all the necessaries of life, and some of the luxuries, including "clompen and switzer kase." And have we not the second largest express station and the third largest postoffice in the state of Michigan ? Is not "Kalamazoo Celery" tacked on to the waving plumes of green that adorn the tables of the lovers of good things all over this broad land ?

Celery was probably introduced here by the venerable gardener and nurseryman, George Taylor, who, at the age of 86, may be seen any day busy among the trees in which his soul delights, but his farm was upland" and it was up-hill work to dispose of a dozen heads, for the peculiar tooth-someness of this vegetable had not burst upon the palates of the Wolverines. So it was not until ten or twelve years ago that any attempt was made to raise it in quantities for shipment, and the merit of originating the idea seems to lie between two Hollanders, De Bruyn and Van Haften, and an American, the late P. C. Davis. These parties were certainly the first to go into celery with a view to shipment.

How is celery grown ? In the first place, a long and violent, or rather patient, wrestling match with many and sundry tamarack stumps above ground and below, willow and alder brush, or the tough and wiry massasauga grass. After the surface is smoothed of all these, the black muck is trenched to the depth of 28 inches and the strong native sod forever turned out of sight, but rarely is the early crop raised on the new land ; one crop, or at the best two are all that are attained the first year.

The trenched land is then scrupulously leveled and marked into rows, and the work of setting commences. The young plants from the hot-house, cold-frame or open seed-bed, according to the time of year, are taken to the field in basket or wagon-load, and soon the clean, black plain is dotted with the crouching figures of the celery-growers. Young and old, boys and girls, men and women, all furnish the motive power for this seemingly endless task, and the many hands are not long in striping the jetty soil with tiny lines of vivid green.

The first rows are set four feet apart and kept clear by hand-hoeing or, very rarely, by horse cultivator. In fact, horse cultivation is but little used, as the horses have to be shod with a patent clog to keep them atop of the muck, and, except for marketing and hauling all the stable manure they can get their forks into, our Hollanders are very independent of equine aid.

As the first setting begins to run up, the so-called second crop is set half way between the growing rows, and it is nearly time for the commencement of blanching the first setting. This blanching process is the most important epoch in the life of the celery plant, for the best of celery with a suspicion of green about it is unmarketable. Supposing our plant has made its first growth nicely, its waving foliage supported by the thick, broad stems peculiar to our deep, black soil, no matter if it be not quite so tall as we could wish, it will grow taller but not thicker under the blanching process. Armed with a great hoe, with a blade twelve or more inches long, we pull the muck lightly toward the plant, taking care that the dirt shall not fall into the heart.

In about five days, if all goes well, we repeat the operation, raising the earth almost to the celery leaves, carefully keeping the bottom broad and firming the bank so that the rain will not easily wash it down, and if the big hoe won't do it this time, we must use spade or shovel. Three days later, and the bank is raised two inches more and gently pressed against the plant, but not too hard or the white stalks will rust.

The celery will now be ready to harvest in from two to five days, depending partly on the weather and partly on the variety of the plant.

Another method of blanching (said to have originated here) is in common use, known as "board blanching." For the process are used inch boards free from knot-holes, 12 or 16 feet long, 10 or 12 inches wide; these are laid fiat along the rows, one edge just touching the plants. Two men astride the boards raise them by the outside edges, hold them in place with their feet, while they lift up and straighten the stems. The boards are then fastened two and one-half inches apart by means of stout wire hooks or slips of board with notches sawed at the required distance. After the boards are fastened earth is drawn against the bottom, and at the ends of the row a little grass or earth is used to shut out the light and air.

The celery being ready for market, all over the marshes are men, women and boys, pulling, then stripping off the outer stalks with marvelous quickness, trimming the root into shape, or lugging it to the little wash-houses that dot the field. In these wash-houses are a big zinc tank and a bunching table, and the spotless plants are tied in bunches, a dozen in each.

Some of the larger growers ship directly from their gardens, but usually the celery is taken to the commission house, and there packed according to the orders received, five to thirty dozen in a box. Last season there were upwards of fifty firms shipping celery, and their average weekly shipment, by careful estimate, was placed at 50,000 dozens. Most of the celery goes from here by express, but some of the larger shippers have agents at various central points to whom they ship by car-load lots, refrigerator cars being used to transport the product in good condition.

In 1887 and 1888, the sale of Kalamazoo celery was injured by a combination organized here to hold up the price, but this combination broke in 1888, and during the past season Kalamazoo celery, forced on the market at low prices, by its large size and un-equaled flavor, soon created such a demand as to raise prices in the fall as high as during the combination.

"Yes, yes," observes Mr. Pessimist, as with corrugated brow and puffed-out lip he gazes over the landscape, "how long is this celery business going to last ? Your land must run out, and what then ? Other marshes will have to be used".

With "a smile that is childlike and bland" we answer, "Our Hollander friends are intimately acquainted with the virtues of good stable manure, and pay large prices for it, eschewing fancy fertilizers.

"Moreover, our newly reclaimed land does not raise the best celery, for positive proof of which, Mr. Pessimist, you will find in our county records a lease of tracts of land that have raised celery for the last ten years now rented for a term of years at $75 per acre annual rent".

Quoth Mr. Pessimist, with under lip out more than ever, "The fools are not all dead yet." To which we reply modestly, "Neither are our $75 celery gardens".

Mr. Pessimist owns sundry acres of sour cold swamp, some three rods square of which he tried to root up, with the aid of his unfortunate hired man, who dabbled some to-be-pitied celery plants into the mud with an old trowel. Mr. P., remembering the pale and aguish appearance of those plants, stalks majestically out of sight.

There are several requisites to successful celery culture besides the presence of marsh muck. A light deposit of muck above clay sub-soil will not answer. The black muck must be deep. But this must be drained to three feet above water line. It also must be so situated that it will not flood in a wet season.

The area in celery is estimated at some three thousand acres, and the growers are agreed that there is some peculiar mineral element in our marshes that gives the product its fine flavor. All the manure that can be obtained is used, often to the depth of three inches, or as much as can well be dug under. Celery matures here earlier than at any other point in the United States, except in the far south.

Celery is stored for winter by standing it in earth in long, low sheds, well covered with straw or other anti-frost material, and with enough stove heat to keep it above the freezing-point; and so successfully is this done that wintered celery of fair samples was on sale here May 1st, and the new celery was ready early in July. But the bulk of the crop is sold out by New Years. This season it has brought the producers 12 to 15 cents per dozen, and upwards for extra fine.

One of our Hollanders places the value of the three crops produced each season upon one acre at $600, and this at the average prices of the last three years. Much more was realized during the early days of celery culture in this place. The profits of celery raising are like the profits of many other forms of gardening, largely dependent upon the circumstances of the gardener, and while the patient and laborious Hollander has by the untiring labor of himself, wife and children attained enough of this world's goods, in many cases, to retire from active labor, many of our speculators have discovered to their sorrow that unskilled, greedy push, and knowledge of the common ways of the world of grab, are no match in the celery garden for skillful and patient industry. And even these are not always successful, as was shown by the results of severe frosts on May 29th and September 30th last. These did great damage, and in many cases spoiled whole fields. But such unseasonable visitations are out of the common order of things, and there is no reason to fear but that Kalamazoo celery will continue to "wave in the breeze," and delight the palates of our neighbors both near-by and afar-ofF. Nevertheless, careful estimates of the loss by the late frost makes it amount to $300,000. For the year 1888, the actual sales of our celery were nearly $800,000, and it is easy to see that barring the frosts the crop of 1889 would have passed the million dollar mark - a remarkable showing.

Wm. H. Woodhams, 3d.