Crops of Quality for the Home Garden 
THE DESIRABLE SALAD PLANTS—NEW VARIETIES 
DESERVING ATTENTION-CULTURAL DIRECTIONS 
FOR GROWING LETTUCE, CELERY, ENDIVE, ETC. 
BY D. R. Edson 
Editor’s Note: Wc have consistently endeavored to emphasize the fact that 
the one unanswerable argument for the home garden is table quality. You may or 
you may not be able to grow things cheaper than you can buy them — most people 
can. But the fact that admits of no questioning is that by growing your own vege¬ 
tables you can have them better. Only so can you have them absolutely fresh; 
only so can you make sure of having varieties that have been selected solely for 
table quality. In this series of articles the most important of the garden's products 
■will be discussed from the standpoint of quality. Special points of culture also will 
be suggested, with a view of obtaining not only prime quality but a continuity of 
crop over the longest possible season for each kind of vegetable. The first article 
appeared last month, and dealt with the culture of peas. 
N O class of vegetables is more delicious or more healthful 
than the salads. None other may be grown with greater 
ease or had with all the delicacy and deliciousness of absolute 
freshness so nearly around the circle of the year. 
The points of quality in a salad are freshness, tenderness and 
crispness, and without these they become at once flat, stale and 
unprofitable. The secret of having salads fresh and crisp is to 
grow your own, for they lose quality from being kept more 
quickly than most things. The secret of growing salads that are 
tender and sweet is to grow them rapidly, without any check or 
setback, in a suitable, rich soil. The soil for growing salads, 
indeed, can hardly be made too rich, even with nitrogenous plant 
foods; there is no danger, as there is with most vegetables, of 
getting too luxuriant and succulent a growth of leaves, which is 
often the result of too much nitrogen. With most other vegetables 
it is the fruit or fleshy root in its more or less matured stage that 
we use; but with salads it is the leaf, stalk and foliage itself, and 
the more succulent and tender they are the better. In addition to 
a rich soil, if a good quality is desired, good culture and plenty of 
moisture must be supplied to secure that rapid and unchecked de¬ 
velopment which is essential. Top dressings of nitrate of soda 
are especially beneficial. 
Of the several excellent garden salad plants, lettuce is the most 
extensively used, especially for spring and summer; so we will 
turn our attention first to it. This is just the time to start the 
first crop for early spring use in the frames, and in a week or two 
seed should be sown to start the first crop out-of-doors. 
Success with lettuce depends first of all upon selecting a type 
suitable to the season in which you expect to grow it. They may 
be separated first of all, of course, into the loose-leaved and heady 
sorts. There are some people who prefer one or the other 
exclusively, but to obtain the best results all the year round both 
should be made use of. For the purpose of selecting varieties 
adapted to the different seasons, we may divide them as follows: 
The forcing or frame type, 
which is for planting under 
glass and also for planting 
for the earliest results out- 
of-doors ; this includes the 
medium-sized, hardy sorts 
which will develop with a 
cool temperature,and include 
such well-known heading va¬ 
rieties as Tennis Ball, Big 
Boston, May King and that 
splendid newer sort, Way- 
ahead and Grand Rapids, the 
best of the early loose¬ 
leaved sort. Then there is a 
little brown, very small 
heading sort called Migno¬ 
nette, which one seldom 
hears about, but which is absolutely unsurpassed in table quality, 
and, although it is small, can be planted closer so that more heads 
can be obtained. But all of these sorts bolt to seed very quickly 
when hot weather begins to arrive, so when starting them, or very 
shortly after, a supply of one or more of the varieties which will 
stand better should be started to furnish a succession crop, and 
another lot should be sown as soon as planting outdoors is pos¬ 
sible. Both types of the heat-resisting or summer head lettuces 
form hard, solid heads, but the form of growth, texture, thickness 
and quality of the leaves are quite distinct. The best known of 
these two types are called the “butter-head” varieties, including 
such old favorites as The Deacon (San Francisco Market), Nan¬ 
sen (North Pole), and All-Seasons. Black-seeded Simpson and 
Tomhannock are two loose-leaved varieties which withstand the 
heat of early summer very well, and may be used for this second 
planting if one prefers the loose-head sorts to the head-sorts. A 
type which is not so well known, but which withstands the intense 
heat of midsummer even better than the varieties just described, 
is comprised in the extra large, thick-leaved and hard-heading 
sorts, such as New York (Wonderful) and Brittle-ice, which is 
quite similar, but of a lighter color and more tender texture, and 
Nansen and Iceberg. The strong incurved midribs of the leaves 
in this type make the heads almost as solid and firm as that of a 
cabbage, so that they remain closed and crisp and tender inside, 
even in July weather. 
A second and third sowing of these sorts should be made again 
during the early summer to provide a continuous succession. 
Early in August the first sowing for the fall crop should be made 
of one of the “butter-head” varieties, or Grand Rapids. Some of 
these will mature outside in ordinary seasons, and others may be 
put in the frames to yield a supply until after Thanksgiving. Big 
Boston is very good to use for this sowing, as it withstands cold 
weather very well. If it is intended to keep the supply up 
throughout the winter, either in a hotbed or under double-glass 
sash, another sowing should 
be made early in September, 
using Grand Rapids or one 
of the head sorts, such as 
Tennis-ball, Belmont Forc¬ 
ing or Big Boston, the latter, 
however, being more subject 
to rot. 
The Cos type is also good 
for summer and fall use, 
and, although they are 
slightly more trouble to 
grow, as most of them need 
tying up to blanch properly, 
their extra fine quality will 
well repay this slight extra 
care. 
(Continued on page 136) 
Celery plants are usually set about six inches apart, and three or four feet should be 
allowed between the rows. It is essential, also, that they be transplanted once 
