The Art of Living in Australia: Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken

it was years and years before it was finally received into favour. Similarly in the case of salad plants there is the same matter for complaint, and beyond the ordinary cabbage lettuce, celery, cucumbers, and radishes, there is nothing grown. And yet there ought to be inducement enough for many of our young men to devote themselves to such a healthy occupation as market gardening, with profit to themselves and with benefit to the community. The market gardens around Paris, although small, are cultivated to perfection. The French market gardeners, moreover, are, as a rule, a very prosperous class; they keep to themselves, and marry among themselves. On making inquiries from the leading seedsmen throughout Australia, and asking what varieties of salad plants are mostly in vogue, you find that the cabbage lettuce is almost the sole representative. And thus it is that in the very climate where the system calls for salads, so to speak, there is absolutely no attempt made to supply a crying want. A brief reference to a few of these salad plants will better illustrate the importance of their culture. Here, as with the different vegetables, I applied to headquarters for information, namely, to Mr. F. Turnen, of the Department of Agriculture, Sydney, who once more came to my assistance and courteously indicated the localities in which they are likely to do well. And it only seems fitting and appropriate here to remark that Australia's road to prosperity lies through her agriculture; the hydro-cephalic growth visible in every colony is unnatural and needs rectification. Lettuce.----Of this there are two varieties, the ordinary cabbage lettuce and the cos, so named from the Island of Cos in the Aegean Sea, which is also known as the upright, or smooth-leaved lettuce. Although this latter is to be obtained, yet in nine cases out of ten only the cabbage lettuce is procurable. But, as a matter of fact, the upright or smooth-leaved cos lettuce is of a more delicate flavour, and when grown properly by having the leaves loosely tied together at the top about ten days before cutting,