SUMMER SALADINGS. 



0 



employed. But the case is very different in cur small country 

 towns and with amateur gardeners, and even with the owners of 

 the majority of small gardens. In these the supplies are fitful, 

 and the quality after hot weather has set in for a few weeks 

 decidedly inferior. There is probably an undesirable glut at 

 one time, and no Lettuces worthy of the name for days and weeks 

 later on. 



In order to have a continuous supply of perfect Lettuces 

 something more than ordinary or haphazard cultivation is 

 required. Poor ground will not grow them satisfactorily at any 

 time of the year. What they appear to stand most in need of is 

 rich food, warmth, and moisture — at any rate if grown on the 

 level — though, curiously enough, some of the very finest Lettuces 

 are obtained from the flat-topped ridges between early-dug Celery 

 trenches. In these positions they get no fresh manure, and 

 moisture is none too plentiful ; yet when once well established 

 they thrive amazingly during quite the hottest weather. But if 

 Lettuces succeed thus well on ridges they must have an abund- 

 ance of solid manure when planted on the level. Market growers 

 appreciate this fact, and act upon it to a greater extent than do 

 the majority of private gardeners. A medium soil rather than a 

 cold, retentive one best suits Lettuces, and they ought always to 

 be grown in the full sunshine. The earlier sowings for early 

 plants to grow on sheltered sunny borders should be made under 

 glass early in March. If sown thickly in pans or boxes they 

 ought to be first pricked out in other boxes or else in nursery 

 beds, where they can be taken care of; but those raised more 

 thinly in frames may be hardened off and planted out direct in 

 April, where they are to grow to their full size. If the selection 

 comprise quick-hearting Cabbage varieties, good hearts ought to 

 be available from these early-raised plants in May or the early 

 part of June, according to circumstances. The next sowing 

 should be made on a warm border early in April in drills five 

 inches apart, and the seedlings protected from slugs by means of 

 occasional dustings of soot and lime. The plants thus obtained 

 ought, in common with those earlier raised, to be planted out 

 rather extensively, as they will heart in at a time when Lettuces 

 are in universal demand, and when they will not run to seed so 

 quickly as they do later in the season. Those left standing 

 moderately thinly on the seed bed will be the first fit to cut, and 



