204 MAKING HORTICULTURE PAY 



LETTUCE 



Of all salad plants, lettuce is probably the most 

 universally popular. It is rarely used for any 

 other purpose than for salads. Its cultivation may 

 be carried on by means of hotbeds, cold frames, 

 and the open ground throughout the whole year. 

 The greatest demand for it is in the spring when 

 the appetite craves something fresh and succulent. 

 Seeds are frequently started under glass in Febru- 

 ary or March and the seedlings transplanted into the 

 flats, and placed in cold frames for hardening off 

 so as to be transplanted to the open ground as soon 

 as the spring opens. Successions may be made by 

 sowing seed in the open ground at the time when 

 seedlings are transplanted and at intervals of ten 

 days thereafter until May. 



For home use, it is essential that only a small 

 area be planted at a time, because the plants quickly 

 run to seed in hot weather, and as soon as the seed 

 stalk begins to grow the leaves become too 

 bitter to be relished as salad. Frequently lettuce 

 is grown between rows and plants of early cab- 

 bage and cauliflower, so as to occupy the space and 

 thus get two crops off the same land with almost 

 no additional work. The lettuce is removed long 

 before the other crop needs the ground. Plants 

 should not stand closer together than 4 inches in 

 the row. It is customary, in home gardens, to sow 

 rather thinly, and to thin out the little plants when 

 they are about 2 inches high, using the thinnings 

 for a first salad and leaving the plants about 2 

 inches apart for about two weeks until they begin 

 to crowd again, then removing each alternate one. 

 Like all crops grown for their leaves lettuce needs 

 abundant nitrogenous food in the soil and will 



