CHAPTER XIII. HOTBEDS FOR EARLY FLOWERS 



I. How TO Manage Hotbeds 



By Patrick O'Mara 



pTBEDS are most excellent things for those who appreciate 

 early vegetables. They are also useful for flowers, especially 

 tender annuals, and enable the horticulturist, whether 

 amateur or commercial, to hasten the growth of asters, 

 pansies, and the like. In fact, a hotbed is a cheap and 

 often the only available substitute for a greenhouse. 



The size of a hotbed is determined by the requirements of the place; a 

 convenient size is nine feet long, taking three sashes. An excavation three 

 feet deep will be necessary. This should be boarded up completely from the 

 bottom, the back rising two feet above the surface, the front eighteen inches. 

 Cross-pieces four inches broad and an inch thick are let into the boards a 

 sufficient depth to allow the edge of the boards to be even with the under 

 surface of the sash when it is put on. A strip an inch wide and as thick 

 as the sash, nailed along this, provides a tight frame for each sash, 

 and renders ventilating easy. 



Fresh horse manure is the material used to furnish the heat. A quantity 

 sufficient for the purpose should be procured at one time. Small quantities 

 procured at intervals will not suffice. After a few days the pile will begin 

 to ferment, which fact is made evident by escaping steam. The pile should 

 then be thoroughly forked over and formed into a new pile. In two or three 

 days fermentation will again occur, and then the material should be put in 

 the hotbed, treading it down evenly and firmly to a uniform depth of two 

 and a half feet. It is better to mix decayed leaves in equal quantities with 

 the manure, but this is not essential. If the leaves are used the work is 

 hastened somewhat, as fermentation is not so active. The bed being made, 

 put the sashes on the frame. When a thermometer, plunged into the 

 manure, shows 90 degrees F., put in soil to the depth of five or six inches 

 and firm it down. This should be a rich, well-prepared compost, one- third 

 well-rotted barnyard manure and two- thirds fibrous loam. 



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