HOW TO MAKE A HOT-BED. 



27 



No. 2 represents a bed in running order in winter, with 

 the mat d leaning against the fence, the planks well banked 

 at c with litter. • 



The hot-bed is invalu- 

 able for raising plants 

 for planting out of doors : 

 the ease with which the 

 plants are aired and 

 hardened off by remov- 

 ing the glass just before 

 setting the young plants 

 out of doors, makes the 

 hot-bed far preferable to 

 the green-house for this 

 kind of work. 



Many gardeners also 

 raise a crop of lettuce, 



radishes, parsley, or carrots, in the hot-beds, before the field 

 plants, marketing them in March, April, or May. After 

 the field plants have been removed from the hot-beds, in 

 April or May, and the lettuce or radishes sold, it is cus- 

 tomary to employ the whole of the glass upon cucumbers, 

 using a little manure to start them. It is thus that the 

 market is supplied with cucumbers in June before the field 

 crop comes in. 



For winter work, however, in raising these crops the green- 

 house is to be preferred ; it is more manageable, and requires 

 much less labor. The improvements in the construction of 

 green-houses during the few last years deserve some notice. 



It was formerly the custom to construct green-houses with 

 the beds for lettuce and cucumbers raised upon benches near 

 the glass ; the benches soon rotted out, the lettuce raised on 

 them was generally poor in quality, and gave " hot-house 

 lettuce " a very bad name in the market. It is a much 

 better plan to build up the beds solid from the ground, and 

 place the heating-pipes in the alleys. The lettuce grows 

 much more healthily thus, and the beds are more easily 

 repaired. The drawing represents a section of a house built 

 by the writer in 1876, two hundred feet by twenty-four feet ; 

 a and h are the ventilators, c the heating-pipes, d a plank to 

 walk upon when clearing snow from the roof. 



