869.] ' THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 351 



THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 



No. V. 



[Continued from page 268.) 



LETTUCE. 



To be able to supply well-blanched and crisp sweet Lettuce nearly 

 every week in the year, requires a considerable amount of forethought 

 and attention, and is a result very much valued and relished by those 

 who are lovers of salads. To have them in good condition early in 

 May in the open air, make a sowing of the Hardy Brown or Brown 

 Bath Cos on a bed of light rich soil from the 8th to the 20th of 

 August, according to soil and locality. On light early soil the latter 

 date is sufficiently early. It is of importance to get fine Lettuce, the 

 least likely to run to seed, at any season, that good cultivation should 

 be adopted at the beginning, and attended to throughout their whole 

 growth. The seedling-bed should therefore be well manured with 

 rotten dung, deeply dug, and well pulverised, and have an open sunny 

 exposure, so that the plants may be stocky and strong. The seed should 

 not be sown thick, as it is of importance that a crop which has to stand 

 outdoors unprotected should not be drawn and blanched from being 

 thick in the seed-bed. To get the sowing fit for use as early as pos- 

 sible in the open air, the bottom of a south wall is the best place to 

 plant them. A border from 2 to 2 J feet wide, measuring from the 

 wall, well manured and worked, is the position generally chosen for 

 this crop. When the plants are about 2 inches high, which is gener- 

 ally the first week of December, they are ready for transplanting from 

 the seed-bed into the wall-border. Put two rows in the width named, 

 and the plants 6 inches apart in the row ; and in performing this opera- 

 tion avoid the too common mode of drawing the plants from the bed 

 with the hand, instead of using a fork to raise them, in order to pre- 

 serve the tap and other roots as entire as possible. Planting should 

 not be performed when the soil is wet ; indeed, the best time to plant 

 is immediately the border is dug. The surface should be first raked 

 rather finely, because the great enemy of Lettuce in autumn and 

 winter is the slug, and a rough lumpy surface affords them the best 

 hiding-place, and renders measures for their destruction — such as 

 dusting with hot lime and soot — less efficacious. As soon as planted 

 they are watered, and kept regularly moist, should the weather be dry, 

 till they take hold of the ground and begin to grow. Beyond keeping 

 them free from falling leaves, and occasionally stirring the surface of 

 the soil, they require no further attention tiU March. In case of very 

 severe frosts, a few Evergreen boughs, or some straw strewn amongst 



