DECEMBER 15, 1916 



not have lasted very long, for my old 

 knees and back would demand straighten- 

 ing up every little while. 



Well, a couple of these boys, perhaps 

 twelve or fifteen years old, would plant 

 seedlings so fast that one could hardly see 

 them do it. There was just a quick dab 

 of the fingei-, and a little morsel of dirt 

 thrown over the roots, and it was done. 

 They did not take any pains to stand the 

 plants straight up. The plant itself lay flat 

 on the ground; but in just a few hours, 

 witli the proper heat and moisture, and es- 

 pecially with a little sunlight, they straight- 

 ened up of themselves. I was told that one 

 of those boys had on a special occasion 

 transplanted 22,000 plants in ten hours. 

 The seedlings are raised in very rich black 

 soil — I should say a mixture of about half 

 muck and half of stable manure. 



The sides of the bed were a wooden 

 plank ; and on the upi^er edge of this plank 

 is a long strip of angle iron ; and this strip 

 of angle iron forms a track for neat little 

 cai's that cany stuff back and forth. In 

 fact, the cars run so easily that one could 

 give them a push and they would go away 

 off in the distance to the end of the green- 

 house. Stable manure is used everywhere, 

 almost without stint. It comes by the car- 

 load from the large cities; and talking 

 about carloads, our good friend said he 

 handled the lettuce only by the carload. 

 My first question was, " Where do the 

 people live who want lettuce all winter long, 

 by the carload after carload?" I suppose 

 it goes mostly to the great cities. You 

 know it has been pretty well demonstrated 

 that chickens do not thrive unless they have 

 green food as well as grain. And, by the 

 way, your chickens will soon show you, if 

 they have a chance, that lettuce suits them 

 better than any other green food in the 

 v/crld. Well, it seems that people as well 

 as chickens have begun to learn the value of 

 lettuce as a form of green food ; and I 

 suppose our doctors will tell you that let- 

 tuce is one of the most icholrsome products 

 of the soil. It is vncooked food; and you 

 know a great deal has been said about the 

 importance of having at least a part of 

 every meal uncooked — food straight from 

 the hands of the great Father, without any 

 artificial tinkering. 



Overhead heating is used, particularly for 

 growing lettuce; and the most desii-able tem- 

 perature seems to be about 45 at night and 

 55 in the daytime. The green fly is kept 

 down by means of hj'dro-cyanic acid ; and 

 this reminds me of something. These let- 

 tuce-growers, many of them, grow cricum- 

 bers also. Of cour.se the cucumbers require 



a very much higher temperature; and we 

 saw some beautiful cucumbers trained on 

 a wire trellis, in full bloom. For the cu- 

 cumber-house they have one or two colo- 

 nies of bees, the number depending oii the 

 size of the house; and it was to investigate 

 this part of their business that our party 

 went out on this expedition. Of course 

 there is no need of any bees in lettuce- 

 greenhouses; but when they fumigate the 

 cucumber-hou.se the bees have to be removed 

 and set out, until eveiy trace of the terribly 

 poisonous gas is gone. The same green- 

 houses also grow tomatoes largely ; and right 

 in the middle of November they are gather- 

 ing tomatoes grown under glass, and ship- 

 ping them by the carload. The tomato- 

 houses need no bees. Let us now go back 

 to where I started. When I was scattering 

 Grand Rapids lettuce seed, not only all over 

 our nation but away across the water, little 

 did I know the outcome. 



One of the greenhouses we visited, that 

 went away up in the center toward fifty 

 feet in height, and covered an acre of 

 ground, cost something like $50,000. T do 

 not remember now how much money there is 

 in a carload of lettuce; but it is probably 

 away up. Large numbers of men and boys 

 are employed in this industry, and very 

 likely women and girls also; and they have a 

 comfortable and pleasant place to work all 

 winter long when there are storms and bliz- 

 zards outside. One reason why I recom- 

 mended greenhouse work thirty and forty 

 years ago is that it affords such a nice 

 pleasant place for work during stormy 

 weather. 



On page 1183 I have told you the story 

 of the outcome of one single individual who 

 caught the fever by reading Gleanings 

 about gardening under glass — or, if you 

 choose, "sup]ioi1 a family on a quarter of 

 an acre of ground," as we have it in our 

 tomato-book. By the way, in closing let me 

 tell you tliat before I dictated this article 

 I hunted up the description and directions 

 for cultivating lettuce as given in our book 

 " What to Do, and How to be Happy While 

 Doing it." In that book our friend Eugene 

 Davis, who first sold me that half-pound of 

 lettuce seed, answers questions and tells us 

 all he can about how to giow Grand Rapids 

 lettuce. To Eugene Davis is due the credit 

 of first starting this gi-eat industry, while 

 I only gave it its name, Grand Rapids, and 

 scattered it by pinches far and wide to the 

 good people who read Gleaxings. I think 

 that this one article in the book mentioned 

 is abundantly worth the price of it to any- 

 body who is in any way interested in grow- 

 ing h'ttuce. 



