LETTUCE. 



223 



known as the Boston Pickling. There are many good varieties 

 of cucumbers and they are offered under various names. For 

 earliest use the Early Russian is perhaps the best, but it is 

 small and seedy. 



THE SUNFLOWER FAMILY. (Order Compositae.) 

 The sunflower family (order compositae) is the largest group 

 of flowering plants, yet it has given us only a very few garden 

 vegetables and those are of little importance. Its plants are 

 distinguished by what the older botanists termed the "compound 

 flower." This consists of several or many flowers in a head, sur- 

 rounded by a set of bracts. Stamens as many as the lobes of 

 the corolla (generally five), their anthers grown together by their 

 edges. Ovary one-celled, inferior, containing a single seed. Be- 

 sides the artichoke, lettuce, salsify, endive, and dandelion, whose 

 cultural directions are here given, there occur here the tansy, 

 sunflower, daisies, corn-flower, ageratum, cineraria, chicory, bur- 

 dock, thistle, wild lettuce, compass plant, ragweed, flreweed, 

 chrysanthemum, marigold, goldenrod, aster, yarrow, zinnia, dahlia 

 and many other well known plants. 



LETTUCE. (Lactuca sativa.) 



Native of India or Central Asia. — Annual. — Flowers yellow, 

 on seed stalks two or more feet high; seeds small, flat, white or 

 black, but sometimes yellow or reddish brown in color. The 

 shape and size of the leaves also vary greatly; sometimes they 

 form a head like the cabbage and again only a loose bunch. The 

 foliage is generally of some shade of green, but some varieties 

 have leaves of a reddish color. 



Cultivation. — Lettuce is largely grown in greenhouses during 

 the winter, in hotbeds and cold frames in the early spring 

 and outdoors in the late spring and until severe weather in 

 autumn. It is a very important crop for the market gardener, 

 as there is some demand for it at all seasons of the year and 

 a large call lor it in the spring. Some growers making a spe- 

 cialty of this crop have it in marketable condition every month 

 of the year. In some sections, the plants may be start- 

 ed in September and when of good size transplanted to a cold 

 frame, where they may be safely wintered over. In the spring 



