134 GARDENING INDOORS AND UNDER GLASS 
Along old fences or the roadside where the wash has 
settled will be good places to get limited quantities. 
These should be cut with considerable soil and 
stacked, grassy sides together, in layers in a com- 
post pile. If the season proves very dry, occasion- 
ally soak the heap through. In late fall put in the 
cellar, or wherever solid freezing will not take 
place, enough to serve for spring work under glass. 
The amount can readily be calculated ; soil for three 
sash, four inches deep, for instance, would take 
eighteen feet or a pile three feet square and two 
feet high. The fine manure (and sand, if neces- 
sary) may be added in the fall or when using in the 
spring. Here again it may seem to the amateur 
that unnecessary pains are being taken. I can but 
repeat what has been suggested all through these 
pages, that it will require but little more work to do 
the thing the best way as long as one is doing it at 
all, and the results will be not only better, but prac- 
tically certain — and that is a tremendously impor- 
tant point about all gardening operations. 
While the coldframe and hotbed offer great ad- 
vantages — especially in the way of room— over 
growing plants and starting seed in the house, they 
are nevertheless incomparably less useful than the 
simplest small greenhouse. Plants may be wintered 
over in them, violets may be grown in them, lettuce 
may be grown late in the fall and early in the spring, 
and followed by cucumbers. But they are not con- 
