COLD FRAMES. 205 



being a tailor and clothier, wholly inexperienced in horticult- 

 ure, signally failed and left in disgust. 



From this small beginning there has grown up an indus- 

 trial commercial trade of such magnitude that at one station 

 alone (Cobden) there have been loaded and dispatched in one 

 da}', twenty-two carloads of perishable fruit and vegetables ; 

 and, instead of mine alone, there are at least one thousand 

 families supported from this business. In 18G1 I bought my 

 eighty acre homestead, located one and one-half miles east of 

 Cobden. In 1862 I bought forty acres adjoining, in 1864 forty 

 acres more, and so on, until I now have six farms, on five of 

 which I have tenants operating on shares. These tenants have 

 each a span of mules, the necessary agricultural implements, 

 and from fifty to one hundred hot bed sash and hot beds, 

 managed about as my homestead farm, the detailed method of 

 which Avill suffice for all. The principal crops now raised are 

 lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, nutmeg melons, squash and cucum- 

 bers. All except the spinach are raised under glass, thus 

 necessitating the use of hot beds and cold frames. 



COLD FRAMES 



are made by simply attaching boards on edge, end to end, to 

 stakes set in the ground in two parallel lines east and west any 

 convenient length. The boards on north or upper side of frame 

 should be fifteen inches wide, those on south side twelve inches 

 so as to give greater slope to the sash. The hot bed sash are 

 made of two inch pine, with five rows of six by eight glass, 

 being three feet one inch in width, and six feet five inches in 

 lengtli, which when placed upon the frame already described, 

 constitute a cold frame. 



LETTUCE. 



About the first of October, in each year, lettuce seed is 

 soAvn, and as soon as the plants are large enough to be conve- 

 niently handled, they are set in the cold frames, six inches 

 apart, and covered with the sash, Avhere they remain during 

 the Winter, growing a little every warm day and requiring 

 little care or attention, except an occasional airing in warm 



