Bisbee daily review., 1907-07-16
SELLS LETTUCE
 FUR OCEAN VOYAGE
Gid Discovers Method of Max ing Big Money in Vegetables and Is Able to Take a Trip to Europe,

been making money by raising ana selling bleached lettuce during the winter.
 The first purchase I made with my lettuce money was spring suit and for a long S..ne to all my family and friends that was known as Mil dred's lettuce dress. Now, although 1 live at home and so have no board to pay, everything I have is bought with the money 1 make on my let tuce, but only my summer trips tell the story.
 Tt was really an inspiration, the way my method of earning my own income began. You know we always had a pit for keeping the hot house plants through the winter-a rough affair, just a hole in the ground, about six feet deep, with the sides boarded up and top of any sort of boards that happened to be lying around the place.
 That year-the year that I had my fnspiration-the flowers were potted and put in the pit unusually early because somebody asserted there was immediate danger of frost. Instead of frosts coming immediately 1t was weeks later, and then it caught the pit uncovered, and the next morn ing the flowers were wreck.
 You see, having been put in the pit unusually early they had become less hardy than they would have been had they been allowed to re main out of doors during the first cold nights We tried watering them with water fresh from the well and all the other homely means within l the reach of q household living in | the suburbs of a small Southern city. Nothing did any good.
 Tt was about the most forlorn- looking flower pit that you ever could imagine. I suppose that was the reason someone was thoughtful enough to put a top on; instead of 1 showing a mass of blooming plants the pit had become an eyesore.
 Tt was early in December that happening to be in that part of the 1 front yard one morning, 1 lifted one of the boards and took a peep in. Il was a mass of dead flower stalks. but in one corner was the most beautiful
 head of bleached lettuce I had evel seen.
 'It was a volunteer plant that in tht
 rich soil of a flower pot, with jus enough light and moisture, hat grown to perfection. Rememberin: that my mother was not well anC
 also that she was particularly font
 of lettuce, I climbed down anC
 brought it out, pot and all.
 "A few minutes after I had gOn
 into the house and while we wer
 still admiring my find, there was
 knock at the front door. It was
 waiter from the large winter hote
 'rnss the street.
 The boy said a gentleman, a gues
 of the hotel, had reported to the mar
 ager that while out walking he ha
 seen a lady in our yard with a quaI tity of bleached lettuce. The manage had sent down to ask Us to sell hir some for his sick guests.
 My mother was quick enough [ know a good thing when she saw i She immediately sent the lettuce, i the pot, to the manager, with tn message that that was the only plar she had at present, but she hoped be able to supply more in a fe7
 weeks.
 She set no price on that one heat but I don't think she was a bit su prised when a few minutes later tn hotel boy came back with a dolla bill and a message from the manage saying he would take all she coul raise.
 Before that day ended every Howe pot in the pit had a lettuce plaI in it. I had gone into town an picked up all the young plants to | had from the florists. After gettin the plants. the next question was 8 curing the requisite amount of ligh "The first plant had been in sue a position that ray of light comin through a crack In the board top ha
 struck it. Of course, we couldn
 manage that with pit fuil of plant
 One of our neighbors suggested thi
 we get small paper bags to slip ovt
 each plant, She said that durini
 slavery days their old negro garden,
 had bleached plants successfully
 that way
 One suggestion led to another.
 the end | decided to give up u
 money I had been saving for ne = winter jacket to buy glass-fillt frames to cover the pit. Under th { glass cover we decided to stretC { white cloth.
 ! "The result of that first expe , ment was not entirely successi ! The lettuse was fine in quality, D { was little too green in color. For our second-pianting, and made only two that year, we g { thicker cloth. While we didn't get { dollar a head for it, the price 1 brought was very good and the ne ] year I went into the business raising lettuce on an extensive sea ! Besides that old flower pit I b ! three others, larger but not so de' s dug a2d the bottom covered fC { deep with thoroughly routed Tefu { from the stable I had my own you ] plants, and as fast as one plant W ] taken out another was put in. T raised and sold six crops u { season and at the end had enou { money to buy that first lettuce drs { of mine and to pay my expenses { four weeks that summer at the s 1 shore.
 +The next year I added still 1 other pit to my plantation and beg ] to experiment with other varieties ] lettuce. I am glad I made my exp ] iments so early in my experience, ! the next season the second large W { ter hotel in our neighborhood V 4 opened and I have since had all
 conld do to keen the two suppl