MANUAL TRAINING 229 



as we hope to multiply very rapidly, to relieve con- 

 gested city life. 



Among the smaller appurtenances of the country 

 home are a hot bed, a seed bed, a nursery, and ar- 

 bors. A hot bed is a box of almost any form, set 

 over a fermenting bed of horse manure, while this 

 is overlaid with very fine soil. Here you enjoy your- 

 self sowing your choicest seeds and those that must 

 be started before frost is entirely out of the land. 

 Here also you place those seeds that are so fine that 

 they cannot be trusted in the open ground during 

 dashing showers. Every country home can easily 

 have a little hot bed of this sort, if nothing more 

 than a drygoods box sunk in the soil, and covered 

 with an old window sash. Much better is it to build 

 a little brick or concrete lean-to against the barn. 



A seed bed differs from a hot bed in this, that it 

 is a little nook of ground, or a corner of the garden, 

 so arranged that you can cover it if necessary. It 

 must contain very finely prepared soil, where you can 

 test new seeds. It is not the mere starting of choice 

 seeds that we are after, but to form a habit of saving 

 the finest seeds of the finest fruits that we eat and giv- 

 ing them a chance to grow and show what is in them. 

 Did you ever think what wonderful possibilities are 

 thrown away in the seeds that are wasted? 



You have learned that no two of the seeds of an 

 apple or pear will produce trees and fruits that are 

 identical, or are like the fruit from which they came, 



