126 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



are an epicure. I don't, even though I confess 

 to being an epicure of the super sort. I raise 

 them by the row for almost nothing, and when 

 the time comes we daily pull out half a dozen 

 solid heads and eat them — that is, in part. 



You may have heard of the seals along the 

 Pacific coast which bite out of a big salmon one 

 choice mouthful and then pass on to the next 

 fish. We do something like that with our 

 romaine, eating only the hearts — crisp, succu- 

 lent, tasty, so full of vitamines or mineral 

 salts that they hardly need the French dressing, 

 though of course we use it. We are wasteful, 

 I admit; but so are the seals; and at any rate 

 we are not cruel. If anybody wants the outside 

 leaves of our Trianon (we have other sorts of 

 cos, too, as well as ordinary lettuce), send us 

 stamped and addressed parcel-post wrappers 

 and we'll mail them.^ 



The rain was not the only thing that made me 

 happy this morning. I enjoyed transplanting 

 the Trianons (and a box of Burbank's new 

 Rainbow chard) because I know how to do that 

 sort of thing well — we usually love our work in 

 proportion to our skill in doing it. I had 

 started these and some lettuce plants in boxes, 

 because earliness is of the utmost importance. 

 Even Iceberg, Brittle Ice, Deacon, and New 



1 Some kinds of romaine are not self-heading — ^in unfavorable 

 dry seasons most of them need to be tied near the top with soft 

 string or raffia to blanch the inside leaves. 



