Arizona Salad Bowl

More than once by stepping into the breech with strains resistant to blight, wilt and other diseases that threatened ruin. In recent years the Arizona Experiment Station has contributed a great deal to the science of lettuce fertilization.

But we are getting ahead of our story. This century was fairly well along before the head lettuce industry was born, and it did not gain any importance until about 1920. Healthconscious Americans began to demand green salads the year around, and for most of them there was nothing that filled the bill like lettuce. Of course, such a tender vegetable cannot be grown where snow is on the ground and blizzards howl, nor can it be kept long in storage. So it was to the sunny Southwest -to Arizona's Valley of the Sun and the Yuma Valley and to California's Imperial Valley-that all North America looks for its head lettuce from December until April.

Today almost every cross-roads store in the nation sells head lettuce, even when the snowdrifts are piled ten feet deep outside. Lettuce is on the menu of every hotel and important restaurant, of every railroad dining car, of many a hole-in-the-wall hamburger stand. It comes in crates, and sometimes out of individual cellophane wrappers as well, which bear the names and brands of Arizona and California grower-shippers.

Straight car load shipments of head lettuce in the United States for 1942, were 56,227. Each car contained an average of 320 crates and each crate contained an average of five dozen heads. That meant a grand total of 17,992,640 crates and 1,079,658,400 heads. In addition, great quantities moved in mixed carloads of vegetables and by truck. Very possibly we Americans, with a little help from our Canadian neighbors, eat a billion and a half heads of lettuce every year with Arizona supplying approximately 30 per cent.

California shipped 38,006 of those straight carloads and Arizona shipped 15,102-about their usual proportions. Arizona shipped more than all other states combined, except California.

It is climate that gives the Valley of the Sun, the Yuma and Imperial Valleys a monopoly on winter head lettuce that can never be threatened by any colder or warmer country. Fall, winter and spring nights that are just chilly enough, not too cold. Those, plus a minimum of rain and ample irrigation water. Another paradox of lettuce is that while it requires plenty of moisture, rain is the last thing the grower wants. He wants to give his lettuce the water it needs, when it needs it; and if Jupiter Pluvius butts in on the job, he just makes a lot of trouble.

Continued

In order that it may produce heads instead of those seed stalks the trade calls "Christmas trees," lettuce is deliberately planted when summer's burning heat is past and there is cool weather ahead. This means early September in the Valley of the Sun the Phoenix area; a little later at Yuma, still later in Imperial. Too early planting means no stand, for the minute seeds (it takes 256,000 of them to weigh a pound) will not germinate at a soil temperature above 70 degrees. To keep down the temperature, water is kept running between the rows until the tiny seedlings are safely up. Another purpose of this soaking is to dissolve any soil crust through which they may not be able to poke their weak little heads. A shower of rain, in the first few days of life, can wash out so many that replanting is necessary.

Almost anything can happen to lettuce, and any grower will assure you that it usually does. If the weather is too warm through the growing season of about 90 days, it "blows up." That is, it goes to seed. It may be fairly cool but not cool enough, so the heads are loose and of lowered market value. If the nights are too cold, the lettuce freezes; or at least it "tipburns" and that means damaged quality. If there is rain about the time the heads are forming, moisture folded in with the leaves causes a condition known as sliming. A warm spell in the middle of the harvest may loosen heads already formed, even bring those dreaded stalks. A sudden plague of insects may necessitate immediate and expensive dusting or spraying.

Because of these factors and many others, lettuce is a highly specialized enterprise. Most of it is raised by packer-shippers themselves, who can thus control every operation from preparation of the seedbed to the sale. Some of these may have as much as 2,000 to 3,000 acres growing in each of several districts, maturing at different times. They commonly expect to lose on one or two of these "deals" every year, hope to recoup their losses on the others. They don't always do this, of course; lettuce is a precarious business, subject to weird and unpredictable market fluctuations as well as to production hazards. Yet it is surrounded by a strange fascination. In prewar days there was always the possibility of a big killing. The trade still reminisces about a certain spring deal two or three years back when the f.o.b. price rose to $4.25 a crate at Phoenix. Now lettuce is under a ceiling price of $3.20, which returns less profit than $2.00 did before costs were swollen by the war.To bring an acre of lettuce along to the point where the harvest called cutting, can begin, costs $70 normally, $100 to $110 under wartime conditions. To cut, haul and pack a crate of lettuce costs 90 cents normally, $1.70 now.

Given a good growing season and good markets, a grower will average 130 crates to the acre. The weather is often not all that it should be; heads may be too small, too large, loose, slimy. For still other reasons the lettuce may not pass the rigid inspection of the Arizona Fruit and Vegetable Standardization Service, and no lettuce may move out of the state without an inspection certificate. Frequently only a part of the good lettuce in a field is cut because the price will not cover cutting, packing and freight. At least twice, the producers have entered into a voluntary agreement and plowed up a third of their lettuce to save themselves from the disaster of a glutted market.

Valley of the Sun lettuce shipments are divided into two "deals." The so-called "fall deal" opens in late November or early December, when the September-planted lettuce starts to mature. This continues into January and then there is a gap, sometimes of several weeks and again of only a few days, until shipments of "spring" lettuce planted in November get under way. These usually are terminated by warm weather in late April but sometimes they extend into May.

Every deal is a period of feverish activity and anxiety. There may be a "runaway market" with buyers right on the ground eager to pay a good price for every car as fast as it can be loaded. More often, though, the packers have to "roll" their lettuce. They send it out on the rails to no definite destination, have it diverted en route to market centers where prospects appear brightest. The Federal-State Market News Service keeps them informed almost hourly as to "trackside accumulations" at the different points, also selling prices.

Harvesting and packing require costly equipment, which is another reason why small farmers grow little lettuce except what they occasionally produce on contract for shippers. Speed is important; there must be no delay between the time a head of lettuce is cut and the time it is on its way, in an ice-packed crate and a refrigerator car, to the table of consumer.

Several harvesting methods are used, some of them patented.

Under one system, cutters walk along either side of a trailer as it is drawn through the field, tossing heads into the bed. When the bed is full it is pulled right onto the packing shed floor, and tilted for the heads to roll out on the trimming table. Under the "basket" system the heads are placed in metal crates which are then set into the bed of a truck. At the shed each basket becomes a bin which is mechanically tipped for convenience of the trimmers.

A packing line in a shed is organized as thoroughly and as ingeniously as the assembly line of a mass-production factory, and it calls for just as much skill on the part of the workmen. These are nearly all "fruit tramps" who follow the harvests around the melon and lettuce districts and sometimes earn as much as $18 to $20 a day, piece work basis, at the height of the season.

On one side of the table stand the trimmers and on the other the packers, usually in the ratio of three to one. With keen knives the trimmers deftly cut off the outer withered leaves and place the heads on the table for the packer. At the same time they toss aside any unmarketable heads that have been sent in from the field by mistake.

As he works the packer regrades and sizes-four dozen, five dozen, six dozen to the crate; he must have a sure and practiced eye. The heads are placed in crates lined with parchment paper to protect from contamination and mechanical injury. Over each layer the packer scatters a shovelful of crushed ice that he takes from a mechanical conveyor. This crate ice, incidentally, is what gave western head lettuce its popular name of "iceberg" when it first appeared in eastern markets.

Another conveyor carries the filled crates to the lidding machine, which picks up, fits and nails each lid tight with a single blow. The crates are then wheeled into a refrigerator car "spotted" by the shed, and piled in tiers that are secured with wooden strips. Over the top tier is spread from 3,500 to 7,000 pounds of ice, depending on the weather, and the car moves out with the next fast freight. Before it arrives in New York, New Orleans, South Bend, Chicago, Toronto, or wherever it may ultimately land, the ice is replenished several times by blowing new supplies over the load.

It will be seen, therefore, that Arizona head lettuce adds much to the prosperity of lumbermen, box makers, ice makers, railroads, wholesalers and retailers, as well as to the growers, shippers and workmen who divide the $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 that it brings into Arizona every year. Its most important contribution to the welfare of the nation, however, is in better living and better health for millions of Americans living in regions not so blessed climatically.

An Ancient Art

"... and so at long last, I began picture weaving or tapestry in 1923. 'Billedvaer', the Norsemen called this ancient art. That was twenty years ago, and I've had tapestry for breakfast, dinner and tea ever since."

It was Melanie Fay Murdock speaking. Her eyes twinkled. Miss Melanie as she is known to her friends, although a tiny woman and small of stature, has a dynamic personality and a whimsicality all her own.

We were sitting in her picturesque studio. In the center, the high-warp loom with a gorgeous Aztec tapestry of richly contrasting colors which she had just completed, dominated the long room whose wide windows overlook the garden court of her home. Here, sequestered in the heart of Phoenix, she told me of interesting episodes in her life. We discussed the revival in America of tapestry weaving, one of the ancient arts, and the metier which has claimed her best creative efforts for two decades. She recalled the days, when at the age of 16, she faced a world hostile to girls who asserted themselves as individuals, and sought opportunities for their talents outside the four walls of the home. She spoke of various lines of work in the business and professional world, undertaken and developed, eventually to be given up to make way for other creative endeavors. "All," she concluded quite simply, "a preparation for this." She glanced toward the loom, and added quickly, "although I realize those years of experimentation, as perhaps they may be called, in widely different fields, have no direct bearing on this work which has absorbed my life. But I was unconsciously moving toward this form-progressing in a better word," she smiled. "For tapestry weaving is an art of enduring value. People do not generally realize that the looms we use have scarcely changed since Biblical days the days of the Old Testament. The stitch made by weavers on modern looms is the same as that of the early Egyptians and Chinese, and the aborigines of North and South America. There is nothing mysterious about it. It is a simple weaving of warp and woof. But the work does demand intense concentration and the ability to carry on sustained effort. In other words, it is real labor, and the weaver must be imbued with enthusiasm that never fags, and possess the high courage that completely absorbs those who strive for creative accomplishments."

Miss Murdock uses the Norwegian method of weaving, which is primitive weaving like that of the American Indian, except that it has a lock stitch. This enables the weaver to work in curves as well as in slanting and straight lines. She is a pupil of the late Lisette Parshall of Santa Barbara, a sister of Dewitt Parshall, the noted artist who was one of the first to paint the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Miss Pärshall had long studied with Mme. Bergh who was one of Frieda Hansen's students. Mme. Hansen's magnificent tapestries hang in many of the palaces and museums of Europe. There are several in America, privately owned or in museums.

The Norwegian tapestry differs essentially from the tapestries of other European countries. According to some authorities, many of the 13th Century tapestries of Flanders were embroidered, not woven. The ancient Norse tapestries were woven with a lock stitch, which is not cut, but locked between the warp threads, and carried along, thus forming a solid

By Frances Fisher Dubuc

Ground without spaces. The tapestries of the famous Morris Looms in England were handled in much the same way. This lock stitch, it is interesting to note, says another historical writer on the subject, is found in old Coptic weavings. The Norse tapestries have their closest counterpart in texture and color in ancient Peruvian fabrics, which have been discovered in the tombs of prehistoric peoples, who lived thousands of years before the Christian era. The changeless color of the Norwegian tapestries, as well as those of other countries in Europe, is due to the natural dyes used in the wool. "The ingredients extracted from growing things give a quality to the shades and tints which merge in the rich colors of a tapestry," said Miss Murdock. "And all of Frieda Hansen's tapestries are woven with vegetable dyed wools." Pointing to the panels on the high loom, which glowed in the light as if studded with rare jewels-ruby, emeralds and sapphire. "We have woven this using only vegetable dyed yarn. I do all my own dyeing, each color, shade and tint being separately dyed. One of my pupils has worked on it with me, and very skillful and adaptable she has proved to be. In all hand woven tapestry the hand takes the place of the shuttle, and the threads as we weave, are patted into place with that prosaic utensila fork. These are the only tools we use. Now that the panels are finished, we have sewn them together so that no lines or spaces are visible."

This tapestry, one of the finest Miss Murdock has woven, is about seven and a half feet wide and eight and a half feet long. It is after an ancient Aztec design, a panel brought from Old Mexico by Lord Kingsborough, famous art connoisseur, years ago, and which is now in the Borgia Museum in Florence, Italy.

We might go on at this point and speak of the historical significance of tapestries that hung in the sanctuaries of the Hebrews, the palaces and temples of Greece and other countries, all representing different phases of national life, through the centuries down to the last decade of the 19th century when in 1893, the first tapestry was woven in America on the Baumgarten looms in Williamsbridge, across the East River in lower New York. But as we are not writing a historical review of this ancient art... all that may be found in the art section of any large city library... we shall return to the versatile artist whose work is the subject of this article.

Melanie Fay Murdock was born in New York City and later lived in New England. She reflects her happy memories of a long period on the professional stage and referred briefly to her dramatic work in connection with the children's theater in Huntington Hall; her years of travel in Europe where she studied with Francis Korbay, a son of Franz Liszt, and met Mary Anderson, Mary Garden and Sargent, the famous portraitist, and other celebrities.

Later Miss Murdock studied horticulture in the Royal Botanical Gardens, and attended college at Hextable, England. She later returned to her home in Eliot, Maine, where she developed a model farm, and, with a friend, operated the "Tea Shed" six miles from Portsmouth, New Hampshire until World War I brought about the close of the place which has become famous for its cuisine and artistic decor. There was a long period of hooked rug weaving, and that experience, she claims, developed her color sense and has been definitely a factor in her tapestry weaving. She became interested in the educational system of the Fairhope School in Alabama where she remained five years, studying and teaching with the founder, Marietta Johnson. This experience brought her eventually to Arizona. Here she founded a school based on what was to many Phoenicians, an advanced method of pedagogy. The school was very successful but Miss Murdock was obliged to retire.

The Surrender of Fort Ticonderoga is one of her notable historical tapestries. In all tapestries taken from pictures other than painting, the artist-weaver must perforce supply the authentic coloring. The Ethan Allen tapestry after the old engraving shows General Ethan Allen wearing a colonial blue coat, red tam o' shanter, cream colored trousers and high black boots. The date is 1775. Time, shortly before daybreak. The General, sword in hand, is demanding surrender of the Fort from an English officer, standing in the open doorway of his house, an old stone house. The officer has evidently been routed out of bed as he is clothed in sleeping gown and cap. Не holds a lighted candle high above his head. His wife peers fearfully over his shoulder. In the background of the court-