KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



rows across a bed, the rows fifteen inches apart and the 

 plants fifteen inches apart in the row : this is done with 

 a little setting stick with which you must carefully fix 

 the point of the root in the ground, as directed in the 

 case of the cabbage plant. Another sowing in April, 

 managed in just the same way, may be the last for the 

 summer ; for, if sowed later, it is very rarely that the 

 plants will loave or be good for any thing. This is what 

 every man may do that has ground in sufficient quantity 

 and well-situated 5 but the lettuce is a thing which people 

 desire to have very early in the spring, and, if possible, 

 in the winter. To have lettuces to eat in the winter, they 

 must be sowed in August or September, in the natural 

 ground, in the manner before-described, and, in Novem- 

 ber, before they have been mauled by the frost, they must 

 be taken up without much disturbance of their roots, and 

 put into a pretty good hot-bed made for the purpose, the 

 mould for which ought to be eight inches deep, at the 

 least. They should be watered a little, at planting, should 

 stand nine inches apart every way, should be shaded from 

 the sun, if there be sun, for a couple of days, should then 

 have as much air given to them constantly as the weather will 

 permit, should be kept clear from rotten leaves and putri- 

 fied matter of every description, should have a lining to 

 the bed, if the weather require it, should, above all 

 things, have as much air as the weather will permit, and 

 should, however, be kept safe from being touched by the 

 frost. If all these things be attended to, and if the 

 season be not uncommonly adverse, you may have fine 

 lettuces by the latter end of December, and through the 

 months of January and February, an object the accom- 

 plishment of which would be insured by having a second 



