250 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



ready glazed and painted, at a cost of about $1.50 each, and if 

 housed when not in use will last many years. Four to six of 

 them will be sufficient to start the plants for a half acre garden 

 and furnish a few messes of lettuce. A frame of inch boards is 

 required, of a size which the sash will just cov^er. The front 

 side to be twelve inches high, and the back eighteen to give a 

 slope for carrying off water and admit the direct rays of the sun. 

 The frame being ready, dig out a pit (which should always face the 

 south) six or eight inches larger every wa}' than the frame and eight- 

 een inches deep. Fill this pit with fresh litter and manure from the 

 horse stable, that has commenced heating. Shaking it on evenly 

 to the depth of two feet or thirty inches, tramp the whole down 

 firmly with the feet, turn on from one to two buckets of water 

 for each yard in length; put on frame and sash, and bank up the 

 outside with coarse manure. After the heat is up, which will be 

 in two or three days, place over the manure within the frame at 

 least six inches deep of good mellow soil, and after raking out 

 the lumps, put on the sash again, and in a day or two more the 

 soil will be warmed through and be ready to receive the seed. 

 Sow the seeds in rows, about three inches apart, covering one- 

 fonrth inches deep, and sow a little lettuce seed along the lower 

 edge of the bed where other plants would be injured by the 

 shade or drip of the sash. If the bed is a success, the seeds will 

 come up quickly and grow rapidly. The plants will require 

 watering whenever dry, and fresh air whenever the weather out- 

 side will permit. Upon warm, bright days the sash may be taken 

 entirely off, but must be replaced at night and kept closed in 

 cold, stormy weather, unless the bottom heat is greater than the 

 plants can bear; in that case, they should be raised a few inches 

 on the back side. In this latitude, from 20th of March to 1st 

 of April, is early enough for starting the farmer's hot bed. 

 About a week before time to take the plants out for transplanting 

 into open ground, keep the bed open night and day, unless there 

 is danger of frost, in order to harden them off. The plants 

 should have been thinned to stand an inch apart in the row as 

 soon as the second leaf appears. The thinnings might be trans- 

 planted into a cold frame. A cold frame is made the same as a 



