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State Agricultural Society. 337 



HOW TO MAKE A HOT BED. 



Farmers generally imagine that it is a great deal more trouble and 

 expense to make a good hot bed than it really is. Many of them never 

 having seen one do not know how to make one, and never having expe- 

 rienced the advantages of one cannot appreciate them. For the benefit 

 of such we give the following cheap and easy mode of construction and 

 management: Make a frame or box, say three feet wide, and six. nine, 

 or twelve feet long, depending on the size of the bed you desire. It may 

 be made of inch boards and should be, say one foot deep in front and 

 eighteen inches on the back. Dig out a trench in the garden on the 

 south side of the fence the same Size as the frame and eighteen inches 

 or two feet deep. Fill up with fresh horse manure mixed with straw — 

 about as it comes from the stable where horses are carefully bedded 

 with straw — to the depth of a loot or fifteen inches. Then put on the 

 frame and cover the manure from eight to ten inches with good, rich, 

 sandy loam, or light warm soil, that will not bake or crust over when 

 sprinkled with water. Bank up the outside of the frame with the same 

 kind of manure used inside, and cover with common window sash of the 

 proper size to cover the frame, and your hot bed is completed; and as 

 soon as the manure begins to ferment and heat it is ready for use. 



How much dias it cost? About one day's work, and the price of the 

 windows used. The expense of the window may be dispensed with, and 

 any old piece of canvas, or a bed sheet, or old mat may be used instead 

 anil answer a very good purpose, though the glass is better, as it lets in 

 more light and heat from the sun. 



Now plant your seed in rows across the bed and in a few days you 

 will have the satisfaction of seeing the plants for an early garden burst- 

 ing up through the warm soil. In warm pleasant days the cover should 

 be left off, and the plants should be sprinkled with water from which the 

 chill has been taken just enough to keep the soil moist and steaming. 

 As soon as the weather is warm enough, and the plants of sufficient 

 size, they may be transplanted to the warmest part of the open garden, 

 being careful to protect them from the cold nights, if any occur. 



By this simple means every farmer's table may be supplied with a 

 plenty of all kinds of vegetables as early as they appear in our market, 

 and much better. Try it once, and we guarantee that it will pay. 



TIDE AND OVERFLOWED LANDS. 



As Corresponding Secretaiy I received an invitation to accompany an 

 excursion to the swamp and overflowed lands located about the conflu- 

 ence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and deeming them of 

 so much importance to the agricultural interests of the State, I propose 

 to give a brief description of those lands, both as to their location and 

 character. 



As many of our readers have probably never given much attention to 

 the subject of the tule and overflowed lands of our State, we will first 

 very briefly give them a general idea of the location and character of 

 these lands, and the means adopted for their reclamation. 



The two great rivers above named, and all their large tributaries, have 

 a strip of tule land on each side of them stretching from their entrance 



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