1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



993 



inches apart; and lastly they ought to be 

 not nearer than eight inches from center to 

 center. If you want to grow heads of lettuce 

 weighing two or three pounds, they ought to 

 stand at the last transplanting a foot apart 

 each way. Where they mature at about 

 eight inches apart they can easily be made 

 to weigh a pound to the plant. In trans- 

 planting, if you wish to make a success of 

 it, and have your plants move right along, 

 just as if they had not been transplanted at 

 all, take them up with some of the compost 

 hanging to the roots. A teaspoon or a table- 

 spoon makes a nice trowel for this purpose. 



SPACING-BOARDS FOR TRANSPLANTING 

 GRAND RAPIDS LKTTUCK. 



The small one is for the first transplanting ; the one 

 •with the pins further apart is for the second trans- 

 planting, and so on. 



When the plants are very small, use the 

 handle of the spoon; and when they are 

 larger, take a little dirt with them, with 

 the bowl of the spoon. When j'ou begin op- 

 erations you will probably have no trouble 

 from the green fly; but after you get sever- 

 al crops on the same bed, the green fly will 

 probably come in. I do not know where it 

 comes from. If you grow the plants in a 

 hot-bed or cold-frames, and can take the 

 sashes clear ofi" and can let the plants get 

 a drenching rain occasionally, you will 

 have no trouble from the green fly — at least 

 I have always found this to be a perfect 

 remedy. If you can not do this, cover the 

 ground every time, before you transplant, 

 with tobacco dust, say ,'4 in. thick; and if the 

 green fly should still get on your plants at 

 any time, just cover the whole bed with to- 

 bacco dust, sprinkling it all over the leaves 

 and down in between the plants, leaving it 

 on about three days, then washing it off 

 with a sprinkler. This will do it every 

 time if you are thorough in your work. But 

 if you once let the green fly get started, so 

 they are all over the plants, and get down 

 into the heart of them, j'ou may find it a 

 tough job. It is something of a trick to 

 learn to grow lettuce under glass; and if 

 you think you will be pretty sure to neglect 

 them, perhaps you had better not start. 

 You must not leave the sashes on and let 

 the plants get too warm. The green fly is 

 ever so much worse where the plants have 

 been kept too warm; and on the other hand 

 you must not leave the sashes off and let 

 the young plants freeze. Lettuce, when 

 grown under a low temperature, will stand 

 quite a little freeze. It maj- look as if it 

 were all killed; but it will come to life and 



straighten up and be all right. But you 

 had better not risk such treatment too many 

 times. The plants will stand it once or 

 twice, but they are apt to become discour- 

 aged. 



Where every thing is managed right, you 

 should be able to take a good crop from 

 your beds every six weeks — that is, provid- 

 ing you put in some more plants in place of 

 the crop you sell, just as soon as the ground 

 is vacant. I like to see some new plants 

 nicely set out in the bed within an hour aft- 

 er the old crop is taken oft'. It is expensive 

 work to maintain every thing just right un- 

 der glass; and none of the space should 

 be wasted — not even a square foot, or 3'ou 

 might say a square inch. 



In regard to fertilizers, I know of nothing 

 better than green stable manure. The com- 

 plaint that raw manure produces too much 

 foliage is all right for lettuce, for it is foli- 

 age we are after. Get your manure from 

 the stables — if possible, without straw. If 

 you can not get it without straw, sift the 

 straw out of it. The best way would be to 

 get some muck from the swamps, and use 

 it for bedding. Put enough in the stables 

 to catch every bit of the liquid manure. 

 And, by the way, you want a stable with a 

 cement floor. This is just what I have 

 been making in our barn at the cabin in 

 the woods. Keep this cement floor covered 

 with plenty of dry muck, and you will have 

 the best fertilizer in the world, for any pur- 

 pose. Just mix it with some sand or sandy 

 loam, when you put it in your beds under 

 glass, and you will not want any thing else. 

 Poultry manure dried, pulverize \ and sift- 

 ed in with the soil, is also excellent for let- 

 tuce. 



Now, friends, if I have not told you all 

 about growing lettuce under glass, at least 

 all you need to know until you get some 

 practical experience, write me and I will 

 tell you more — that is, if I can. 



HUBBARD SQUASHES. 



The hill back of the cabin in the woods 

 runs upverj'high, andoneside of it issosteep 

 that my workmen said it was out of liie 

 question to try to plow it. We plowed all 

 around the steep place, and then dug it over 

 with mattocks. That was when we were 

 clearing off last spring. I managed to 

 plant my peach-trees right along that steep 

 place; and we planted potatoes between the 

 peach-trees except on this spot that was 

 nearly perpendicular. Somebody suggest- 

 ed that Hubbard squashes would be a splen- 

 did thing to put among young peach-trees; 

 and if planted midway between the trees 

 the squash-plants would not be nearer than 

 eight or ten feet from the trees; but the vines 

 during hot weather shaded the ground so 

 as to be almost like a mtilch. So I planted 

 Hubbard squashes midway between the 

 trees. The fore part of the season was so 

 cold and backward I did not expect to i^et 

 a squash; but all at once, before I knew it, 

 those squash- vines woke up and "got a 

 inove" on them. They went to the top of 



