Forcing-House Miscellanies. 389 



When pressed for room, we sometimes prick off the plants into 

 S-incli or d-incli pots and set these pots in unoccupied places amongst 

 other plants. Yery good lettuce can be grown in this way, altliougli 

 it is scarcely practicable in commercial houses. 



Probably no forced vegetable is so much influenced by soil as 

 the lettuce, and no doubt more failures are to be ascribed to uncon- 

 genial soil than to any other single cause. Fortunately this matter 

 has been made the subject of a most admirable study by Galloway,* 

 who finds that the famous heading lettuce of the Boston gardeners 

 can be grown to perfection only in soils which contain much sand 

 and very little clay and silt. These soils allow the water to settle 

 deeply into it and yet holds it without percolation ; the surface is 

 dry, preventing the occurrence of rot ; the roots forage far and 

 wide, and the plant food is quickly available. The full characters 

 of the soil used by the Boston growers are set forth as follows by 

 Galloway : " Loose at all times, regardless of treatment, it being 

 possible to push the arm into it to a depth of 20 inches or more. 

 Never ' puddles ' when worked, no matter how wet. Clods or lumps 

 never form. A 4-inch dressing of fresh manure when spaded in to 

 a depth of 15 to 20 inches will be completely disintegrated in six 

 or eight weeks. Sufficient water may be added the first of Sep- 

 tember, when the first crop is started, to carry through two crops 

 and a part of a third without additional applications, except very 

 light ones merely to keep the leaves moist and to induce a move- 

 ment of the moisture at the bottom of the bed toward the top, 

 where it will come in contact with most of the roots. The surface 

 to the depth of an inch dries out quickly, and this has an important 

 bearing on the prevention of wet rot of the lower leaves. The active 

 working roots of the plants are found in abundance throughout the 

 entire depth of soil, even if this exceeds 30 inches." 



Galloway was able to prepare soil which " gave practically the 

 same results" as that which he imported from Boston. The soil 

 was made as follows : " Mixture of two parts of drift sand and one 

 part of greenhouse soil. The sand was obtained from the valley of 

 a stream near by, which frequently overflowed its banks, flooding 

 the spot where the material was found. The greenhouse soil was a 

 mixture consisting of one ])art of the ordinary clay, gneiss soil of 



* B. T. Galloway, TheGrowtli of Lettuce as Afifected by the Physical Proper- 

 ties of the Soil," Agric. Science, viii. 302 (1S94). 



