SECT. XV. OF ESCULENTS. 241 



latter is earliest The cabbage lettuce eats mode- 

 rately well, but is chiefly used in soups, &c. The 

 Silesia lettuce is much admired by some, though at 

 present but little cultivated: There is a brown and 

 green sort of it. 



For winter and spring use, the hardier sorts are 

 sown in July, August, and September, but chiefly in 

 August, when if three sowings are made, the be- 

 ginning, middle, and end of the month, it will gene- 

 rally be found .sufficient. They may be sown, how- 

 ever, all September, or even at the beginning of Oc~ 

 tober, and it may be stand, when older plants are 

 cut off. 



For summer use, the white coss, and any of the 

 others, may be sown on warm borders, either in open 

 ground, or under hand-glasses, or other cover, in 

 February, and a little constantly every fortnight, or 

 three weeks after, causing cooler ground for them 

 when summer advances. Plant them from ten to 

 fourteen inches asunder, according to the size they 

 attain ; it being an error to put lettuces out so near 

 as many do, for it forces them to run for seed, and 

 prevents their growing large : The sorts called the 

 Egyptian, and the admirable, should be allowed 

 eighteen inches, Lettuces may be pricked out very 

 young ; and when three or four inches high is the 

 best time for planting them. 



It is not a common way, but spring sown lettuces 

 will be forwarder and larger if sown thin, and only 

 thinned out to their proper distance : Those that are 

 drawn may serve for a second crop. The brown 

 Dutch, green capuchin, the tennis-ball, and button 

 lettuces, do not run up so soon for seed as the other 

 sorts, and are therefore proper for late summer use. 

 To forward early spring sown ones, a slight hot*bed 

 may be made, and by all means ought to be sonic 

 time in February, if those that were to have stood 



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