To raise head lettuce in perfection the greatest care must be taken to reserve the very best and tightest heads for seed, or if the seed is to be purchased select the hardest-heading varieties. For the earliest planting the seed should be sown in the hotbed and have the same treatment as its associate, the cabbage; the young plants should not be allowed to stand too thickly; they should be at least an inch apart in the seed bed, or be transplanted to that distance when half an inch high. When the cabbage is set out, one or two lettuce plants may be set between each pair of cabbages in the row, according to the distance the cabbages are apart. There must be space enough between the plants to give the soil a good stirring with the hoe around each plant, as thorough cultivation is essential to the best development of both cabbage and lettuce. A second lot of seed should be planted when the tomatoes and egg plants are sown; these can be set out in the garden as soon as they are large enough to handle. The third sowing should be made in the open garden when the first planting is done, and the young seedlings should be transplanted as soon as the plants are large enough and before they begin to be crowded in the row, as this last sowing will not form heads without it receives the best of care. These three sowings are about all that can be depended upon to make hard heads, unless it can be planted in some rich, shady corner, and carefully nursed with the watering pot. [Illustration: PERPETUAL LETTUCE.] About the first or middle of May a sowing should be made of the “Perpetual Lettuce,” and the plants, when large enough, should be transplanted and treated the same as the head lettuce; it will not form tight heads, but produces a fine bunch of broad, yellowish-green leaves, which are very crisp and delicate, not being strong and bitter, as most lettuces are in hot weather. This lettuce will stand from four to six weeks without running to seed, so that if plantings are made about once a month it can be had in perfection throughout the balance of the season. If the head lettuce is more particularly desired, a sowing should be made about the first of August, and another about the fifteenth; the young plants should be transplanted and treated in the same manner for heading as is followed in the spring; the first sowing will not produce heads unless the latter part of August and the first part of September be cool and moist; but you are almost sure to have fine heads from the second sowing. Personally, I prefer the Perpetual, both for its fine qualities and the ease of growing it.