In order to begin the work well, it is a very good way, to put some boards on their edges, on the ground, at the ends and sides, on the insides of the stakes; so as to have a sort of open box to begin to make the bed in. The eye of a gardener scorns such assistance; but it is very useful to persons unused to the work.



Thus, all being prepared, you begin making the bed. Begin taking the dung on the side of your heap nearest to the spot where you are building the bed. Keep taking up clean to the ground. Have shovel as well as fork. Take long and short fairly, and mix them well as you put them in. Shake the stuff in such a way as not to suffer any lumps.

Shake every straw from every other straw. Let the bed rise in all parts together as nearly as possible. That is to say, do not put much in one part at one time. Beat the whole down with the fork as you proceed. When you have shaken on dung to the thickness of four or five inches, beat all over well again; and so on, till the work be finished.

But mind: you must be very careful to keep the edges of the bed well beaten; or else they will be more hollow, and will sink more, than the rest, and then the earth on the bed will crack in the middle.

Beat them well; keep them well up as you proceed; beat well the sides of the bed, as it goes on rising. Comb the sides frequently down with the spanes of the fork. And, in short, make the sides upright, and smooth and neat as a wall. As you proceed, measure the height frequently; in the different parts of the bed, to see that you are keeping the height everywhere the same.

At last, shovel and sweep up all the short earthy stuff round the bed and where your dung heap was, and lay it very smoothly on the top of the bed; and make all as smooth and as level as a die with the back of your shovel.

Thus the bed is made. Then put on the Frame, and fix it nicely. Then put the Lights upon the Frame. If you finish your bed by noon, the heat will begin to rise by the next morning; and, by the noon of the second day after the bed is made, the heat will be up.

Poke your finger as deep as you can into the middle of the bed, when you have taken off one of the Lights. If the heat be so great as to burn your finger; that is to say, if you cannot endure the heat; then it is too great to receive the

earth; but, if not, put on the earth all over the bed. If the heat be too great, give the bed a little air, and wait till a little of the heat be gone off.

The earth should be dry; not like dust; but, not wet. I made provision for my bed, by putting earth in my cellar, in November. It is not much that is wanted. The bed is to be covered all over, about six inches deep. When the earth has been on twenty four hours, take off the lights, and stir the earth well with your hands; for, hands are the only tools used in a hot-bed.

When you have stirred the earth well, and made it level and smooth, you may sow your seed, if you do not find the earth too hot. But, observe, the earth is to be level, and not sloping like the glass. The glass is sloping to meet the sun, and to turn off the wet; but, the earth must lie perfectly level; and this, you will observe, is a very great point.

Next comes the act of sowing. The more handsomely this is done, the better it is done. A handsome dress is better than an ugly one, not because it is warmer, or cooler, but because, liking it better, being more pleased with it, we take more care of it.

Those who have seen two or three women together, crossing dirty streets, or in danger from horses or carriages, where the volunteer assistance of men became useful; those philosophers, who have been spectators of scenes like this, cannot have failed to discover, that humanity like smoke, is very apt to fly to the fairest; and I much question whether Nicodemus Broadbrim himself, if he saw a pretty girl and an ugly one stuck in the mud, would not give his hand to the former.

He would hand them both out to a certainty; but, he would extricate the pretty one first. There is a great deal in the look of our gardens and fields; and, surely, in so diminutive a concern as a hot-bed, all ought to be neat and regular.

Seeds are great telltales; for, when they come up, we discover all the carelessness that may have prevailed at the sowing of them.

When you have taken off all the lights, make little drills with your finger, from the back of the bed to the front, half an inch deep and about an inch apart. Make them equal distant, parallel, and straight. Then drop in your Cabbage seeds along the drills, very thin; but, twenty seeds, perhaps in an inch; for, some will not grow, and some may be pulled up when they appear.

It is better to have rather too many than too few. When you have dropped in your seeds all over the bed, and distinguished the several sorts of Cabbages by names, or numbers, written on a bit of paper, and put into the cleft of a little stick, stuck in the ground; then cover all the seeds over neatly and smoothly. Put on the lights; and look upon your spring work as happily begun.

But, now we come to the management of a hot-bed. And, observe, that the main principle is, always to give as much air as the plants will endure. I have always observed, that the great and prevalent error is, an endeavor to obtain, by exclusion of air, something to make up for the want of bottom heat. It is not thus that nature operates.

She gives the air as well as the heat; and, without the former she gives nothing. I suppose the hotbed, made as above, to be about four feet high, when just finished. It will sink as it heats; and will, at last, come to about a foot and a half. Its heat will gradually diminish; but, it will give a great heat for about six weeks; and some heat for four months.

It is this bottom heat that makes things grow. The sun is often hot in May; but, it is not till the earth is warm that vegetation advances with rapidity.

Having secured the bottom heat, make free with the air. Even before the seeds begin to appear, give air to the bed e very day, unless it be very cold weather indeed. The usual way of giving air is by bits of thick board, cut in the shape of a triangle, or, rather, like a wedge, broad at one end, and coming to a point at the other.

Each light is lifted up, either at back or: front of the frame, as the wind may be, and the wedge, or tilter, as it is called, is put in, to hold the light up. But, if more air be wanted, the lights may be shoved up, or down; and, in a fine day, actually taken off.