2o6 MAKING HORTICULTURE PAY 



Common sheeting, costing 8 cents a yard, was 

 tacked on this frame with large headed tacks. 

 Plants were set out the last day of March, and it 

 seemed as if to test the value of the plan a cold 

 snap came; on the morning of April 2 the ther- 

 mometer stood at 16 degrees above zero. Cabbage 

 and cauliflower plants set in a well-protected cold 

 frame were frozen badly, while this bed, with only 

 a slight protection of wild hay, came through with- 

 out a bit of frost. 



" The sashes were removed every day, unless It 

 snowed or the thermometer stood below 40 degrees, 

 but were covered every night where there was dan- 

 ger of frost. Scarlet Globe radishes were sown be- 

 tween each pair of rows, and were sold at a good 

 profit ten days before we could pull from outdoors. 

 A few sashes were planted to Grand Rapids lettuce, 

 which was ready to cut May 20, while plants set 

 outdoors were not ready until two weeks later. 



LETTUCE VARIETIES 



" In 1886 Peter Henderson wrote that he had never 

 seen cos lettuce in the markets. Now there is not 

 a day during the season when it is absent, and there 

 is not a first-class city restaurant that considers its 

 menu complete without romaine, as the class is 

 popularly known. This is due solely to the merits 

 of the varieties which have long been justly popular 

 in home gardens. They are more tender and more 

 crisp than ordinary lettuces, and have more elon- 

 gated heads, being usually conical, and from 8 to 

 10 inches high and 5 or 6 inches in diameter. 



" Like other varieties of lettuce, the seed may be 

 sown in hotbeds or cold frames, or in the open 

 ground, either for transplanting or thinning where 

 sown. The soil should be well supplied with 



