French Gardening or Intensive Cultivation 221 



rows of Cos Lettuce, making (with the three rows under the cloches) nine 

 rows altogether on one bed 4| ft. wide. It is obvious that the Cos Lettuces 

 under the cloches, being warmer and more comfortable, are growing at a 

 more rapid rate than the others, and will therefore come to maturity sooner. 

 This is what actually happens, and in March the Cos Lettuces under the 

 cloches are cleared for sale. Two things immediately follow this operation. 

 First, the cloches thus freed are placed over three other rows of Cos 

 Lettuces, and the spaces left vacant by the departure of the first crop are 

 once again filled with young plants, thus still keeping up the nine rows to 

 the bed. 



Moving the cloches from Crop No. 1 to Crop No. 2, although a simple 

 matter to the maraicher, is a somewhat puzzling proceeding to the 

 novice. The arrows indicate the way in which the cloches should be 

 moved in a north-westerly direction, it will be observed. In the first 

 place, however, the cloche at the extreme north-west corner must be 

 taken away altogether, and placed at the extreme south-east end of the 

 bed. With one cloche missing it is thus a simple matter to move the 

 others one after another over the second crop of Lettuces in the way 

 shown in the diagram, the cloche taken away at first being, of course, 

 available for the last plant in the bed. 



About a fortnight after this movement of cloches the Cos Lettuces 

 beneath them will naturally have grown more quickly than those exposed. 

 They will then be fit to pull, and another movement of cloches and 

 another replanting will take place. This time, however, the cloches will 

 be moved due south, over Crop No. 3, as shown by the arrows in the 

 diagram. This ingenious system of protecting one crop of Lettuces after 

 another with the same bell glasses goes on until the end of April or May, 

 when there is no longer any necessity for protection. 



From this period and throughout the summer months the Lettuces are 

 grown in precisely the same way, cropping and intercropping proceeding 

 with regularity. But the plants are not left to the tender mercies of 

 the weather as in British market gardens. They are watered every day 

 (except when a heavy rain falls), and during the summer months, when the 

 -thermometer registers 80 and more in the shade, perhaps the plants will be 

 watered in the afternoons as well as in the mornings. The beautiful dark 

 spongy mould drinks the water up readily, and notwithstanding the great 

 evaporation of moisture from the plants themselves, and from the surface 

 of the soil, there is an abundance of humidity, which with the heat causes 

 the crops to grow with extraordinary rapidity. Thus the gardener is kept 

 constantly at work marketing one crop, and immediately filling its place 

 with another as fast as he can go. Why cannot this open-air system of 

 cultivation be practised on an acre or two in British market gardens 

 during the summertime at least? It would pay much better than having 

 5, 10, or 15 ac. under Lettuce, and losing half the plants by lack of culti- 

 tivation. In the course of twelve months a French maraicher must clear 

 something like a quarter of a million Lettuces off 1 ac. of ground, to say 



