Lettuce Culture Under Cover. 
BY W. H. DRAEGER, OF GAINESVILLE. 
To grow lettuce under cover (cotton 
cloth), a person must have suitable soil. 
Lettuce likes rich, loamy, damp soil, 
well drained, not subject to being water- 
sogged after rains. To prepare for 
planting, have your soil well tilled, fer¬ 
tilizer thoroughly mixed with the soil; 
use a high-grade fertilizer with an 
analysis about as follows: Moisture, 7 to 
9 per cent.; available phos. acid, 5 to 6 
per cent.; insoluble phos. acid, 2 to 3 per 
cent.; ammonia, 6 to 8 per cent.; potash, 
K2O, 6 to 8 per cent. 
Well-rotted compost is especially suit¬ 
able for lettuce, with commercial ferti¬ 
lizer added; 1,000 pounds to the acre 
should be sufficient, but great care must 
be taken to have it thoroughly mixed 
with the soil, especially if a liberal 
amount is used. Have it in the soil 
some days before setting the plants, say 
four or five days. 
Care should be taken that the plants 
are young and strong, say from five to 
six weeks old, as older plants are more 
liable to run to seed or not head well. 
In preparing the land for the beds, they 
should be on a slight slope the narrow 
way. Make the lands some wider than 
the bed proper; say allow a foot on each 
side. List up ridges across the beds 
with a hand-plow about fifteen inches 
apart, smooth the lists down to about 
one and a half to two inches high. 
Plant twelve inches apart on the ridges. 
Lettuce should be set before the cover 
frames are put down. A very desirable 
sized frame would be as follows: Have 
the frame twenty feet wide across the 
bed; have the cloth sewed in eight-yard 
widths. For a twenty-foot bed have 
the center ridge stake about three feet 
high; the outside stakes about ten or 
twelve inches high; the ridge strip 1-2 
2x21 feet long. Put the ridge strip over 
the ridge stakes, bow down and nail to 
the ten-inch stake a board to fit the short 
stake, nail on around the entire bed, so 
the cloth can be fastened on to the 
boards. A good stout string should be 
attached to the cloth at every stake, 
which can be put say five or six feet 
apart. The cloth must lap over the 
boards enough to keep the winds from 
getting under the cover; this is import¬ 
ant. 
The bed the long way can be made as 
long as the person wishes it; but it is not 
practical to have beds too long, as the 
cloth is hard to handle, especially if there 
is much wind to contend with. The 
ridge stakes should be at least 2x2 
inches; in fact, all stakes should be 2x2 
inches. The cloth can be tacked down 
or tied to the center stake, as the person 
chooses. 
The cloth should never be down only 
when there is danger of frosts or freez- 
