Dung of horses, cattle, sheep or pigs, is used to make the bed of. Either may be made to do with a greater or less degree of care and trouble; but, the best possible thing is dung from the stable, taken away before it has been rotted, short and long promiscuously, but rather long than short. If there be a large proportion of short, it may have any litter added to it; any broken straw or hay or corn stalks, in order to make a due mixture of long and short.



This choosing of the materials being a very important point, I shall, in order to make my instructions clear, suppose a case, and such a case as will be very clear to every American Farmer.

By the month of March he has always a heap of dung, which has, from time to time, been thrown out of his stable, during the winter and fall. This is some long and some short. Let the whole of this (supposing there to be three horses kept) be taken; and, in addition, a pretty good wagon load of long stained stuff from the cow yard, or sheep yard.

Toss it down in a heap, near where you are going to make the bed. Then begin on one side of it, and take the stuff and begin making a fresh heap of it. Shake every forkful well to pieces, and mix well the long with the short; and thus go on, till you have the whole in a round heap rising to a point.

The second day after this heap is made it will begin to send forth steam. Let it remain three days in this state; that is to say, four clear days after the day of making the heap. Then turn the heap back again; shaking all well to pieces, as before, and bringing to the inside that part of the stuff which was before on the outside of the heap.

Let it remain now three clear days after the day of turning. Then turn it again; shaking well to pieces, as before, and bringing again the outside stuff to the inside. When it has remained two clear days in this state, it is fit to make the bed with.

In the making the bed you will proceed as directed below; but I must first describe the Frame and the Lights. Were I speaking to persons living in a country, where there is no such thing as a hot-bed frame, I should be obliged to enter into a detailed mechanical description. But, as Frames and Lights are to be seen in almost every consider able town in America; and, as I have known very few American Farmers, who are not able to make both with their own hands, without any help from either carpenter or glazier, it will be necessary merely for me to say, that the Frame is of the best shape when it is eighteen inches deep at the back, and nine inches deep at the front.

This gives slope enough, and especially in a country where there is so little rainy weather. The Frame is the woodwork, on which the Lights, or glass work, are laid.

There needs no more than a good look at a thing of this sort to know how to make it, or to order it to be made. And, as it is useless to make a hot-bed without having the Frame and the Lights ready, I shall suppose them to be prepared.

I suppose a three light Frame, four feet wide and nine feet long, which, of course, will make every Light three feet wide and four long; because, the long way of the Light fits, of course, the cross way of the Frame.

Now, then, to the work of making the bed. The front of the bed is, of course, to be full South, so that the noon sun may come right upon the glass. The length and width of the bed must be those of the Frame. Therefore, take the Frame itself, and place it on the spot which you mean the bed to stand on.

See that you have it rightly placed; and then, with a pointed stick, make a mark in the ground all round the outside of the Frame, Then take the Frame away.

Then take some sharp pointed straight stakes, and drive them in the ground, at each corner of this marked out place for the bed, and one or two on the back and on the front side. Let these be about four feet high. They are to be

your guides in building the bed; and, they ought, therefore, to be very straight, and to be placed perfectly upright. Each stake may be placed about an inch further out than the mark on the ground; for fear of having the bed too narrow; though, observe, the bed should be as nearly the same length and breadth as the Frame as it is practicable to make it.