d lettuce being the most common among them. Lettuce
may be tucked into the garden almost anywhere. It is surely one of the
most decorative of vegetables. The compact head, the green of the
leaves, the beauty of symmetry--all these are charming characteristics
of lettuces.

"Not all form heads. There is a mistaken idea abroad among children that
by transplanting, any lettuce can be made to head. Only such varieties
as are called heading lettuces will head. And these must be transplanted
in order to have really good heads. There are two general types of
lettuce--the Cos and the cabbage. The cabbage grows more like a cabbage
with great tendency toward heading. The Cos grows longer, narrower, and
has spoon-shaped leaves, which have a big, coarse midrib. The inner
leaves cling more closely together after a heading fashion; the outer
leaves spread apart. We grow in our American gardens more of the cabbage
type than of the Cos. Should we go to see our French cousins next
summer, the Cos lettuce would be served to us with plenty of oil as a
dressing.

"As the summer advances and as the early sowings of lettuce get old they
tend to go to seed. Don't let them. Pull them up. None of us are likely
to go into the seed-producing side of lettuce. What we are interested in
is the raising of tender lettuce all the season. To have such lettuce in
mid and late summer is possible only by frequent plantings of seed. If
seed is planted every ten days or two weeks all summer, you can have
tender lettuce all the season. When lettuce gets old it becomes bitter
and tough.

"Melons are most interesting to experiment with. We suppose that melons
originally came from Asia, and parts of Africa. Watermelons grow wild in
Africa. The Negroes and wild animals feed upon them. Perhaps that is the
reason why the coloured people so love them. Anyway, melons belong to
these countries. Melons are a summer fruit. Over in England we find the
muskmelons often grown under glass in hothouses. The vines are trained
upward rather than allowed to lie prone. As the melons grow large in
the hot, dry atmosphere, just the sort which is right for their growth,
they become too heavy for the vine to hold up. So they are held by
little bags of netting, just like a tennis net in size of mesh. The bags
are supported on nails or pegs. It is a very pretty sight I can assure
you. Over here usually we raise our melons outdoors. They are planted in
hills. Eight seeds are placed