LETTUCE ALL THE YEAR 225 



is less rain and more winter sunshine. It is to be expected that as 

 population increases there will be a better opportunity for local 

 forcing enterprises which can be conducted with slight structures 

 and a minimum of artificial heat. 



Culture. Lettuce can be sown on moist ground the year round. 

 It is exceedingly rapid in development (from seed to head in four- 

 teen weeks perhaps) and can be grown as a catch crop among slower 

 growing vegetables at all times of the year. It starts readily from 

 the seed, and the most common practice is to sow a thin drill of it 

 here or there, as interspace is to be for a short time unoccupied, 

 thinning the plants at the first weeding and allowing the plants to 

 head in the thinned row. This is the simplest practice, and will be 

 most generally followed in the farm garden. And yet it is so easy 

 to imitate the market gardeners and put in transplanted lettuces here 

 and there, wherever an unoccupied corner appears, that this practice 

 must be urged even for the simplest gardening. It is possible to 

 grow about thirty thousand heads to the acre by proper laying off - 

 and culture. Plants fourteen inches apart in rows sixteen inches 

 apart is a good lay-out for hand cultivation. Transplanting should 

 be done when the ground is moist and irrigation should soon follow 

 planting unless rain comes. 



Whenever a winter or early spring vegetable is cleared away 

 a due share of lettuce should go in. Wherever a summer vegetable 

 yields the ground, the soil should be well soaked and cultivated and 

 the lettuce should not be overlooked. As soon as the fall rains suf- 

 ficiently wet the ground, lettuce should be among the first sowings. 

 And before the winter comes on, with its heavy rains, a warm ridge 

 or raised bed should have its lettuce covering underway so that mid- 

 winter shall not lack its supply of salad. And in February, as the 

 ground is again suited for flat culture, new sewings of lettuce should 

 be among the first things done. Thus it is seen that lettuce is to be 

 sown all the year and plucked all the year in California. 



It is not necessary, perhaps, to sow lettuce so often if seed beds 

 are prepared so that they will readily drain away winter water and 

 have slight protection from cold winds in the winter and burning 

 sun in summer. From these beds plants can be taken at different 

 times as land is available for planting out, just as cabbages are trans- 

 planted, and even though the plants have attained considerable size 

 in the seed-bed, the long roots can be shortened a little and they 

 can still be transplanted to good moist soil, and will go on with the 



