LETTUCE 227 



the Boston Market, since it can be set twice as thick as the Big Boston, but 

 for the late winter and spring crop the Boston Market and California Cream 

 Butter lettuce are superior, though they require a foot distance to the six or 

 eight inches of the first named. 



For the open ground crop to be set in the fall in the south, or in frames 

 for wintering over in the North, there is no lettuce equal to the Improved 

 Hanson. It is the largest and most solid heading of all lettuces, and can 

 easily be grown to weigh ten pounds or more per head. For sowing in spring 

 the New York and the Boston Fringed lettuce stand the heat better than 

 others, but any lettuce will soon run to seed in warm weather, and late spring 

 and summer lettuce is milky, bitter and of little value as compared with that 

 grown in cool weather. There are long lists of varieties offered in the seed 

 catalogues, but many are of little value to the market gardener. The best of 

 the loose heading sorts is the Grand Rapids, which is popular in the West, 

 but is little grown in the East. It makes very large bunches and is of fine 

 quality, especially for decorative purposes. 



To persons of discriminating taste there is no doubt that the Grand 

 Rapids lettuce is far superior in quality to the heading or cabbage sorts, and 

 if once a community is educated to the using of the curled sorts they will 

 sell in preference to the cabbage varieties. But at present it will hardly 

 pay the gardener in the eastern part of the country to try to educate people 

 into taking what they are not accustomed to. If the crop is grown for any 

 of the markets West, the Grand Rapids is the variety to grow, and perhaps 

 after a while the Eastern cities may find out its superiority. In the mean- 

 time, if you are growing lettuce for home use, we would advise the curled 

 sorts as of greatly superior quality and beauty to the cabbage lettuces. 



