CHAPTER II 



HOTBEDS, COLD FRAMES AND FLATS 



SO important is the preparatory work per- 

 formed by a well started and conducted hot- 

 bed that its use cannot be too insistently recom- 

 mended. The smallest, least ambitious home 

 garden is dependent upon the use of artificial 

 heat in the starting of such plants as cabbage, 

 cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes and the like, 

 either in hotbeds on the home grounds, flats in 

 the windows or plants grown in commercial green- 

 houses; these, owing to the long season required 

 to bring them into bearing, cannot be started in 

 the open gi'ound; especially is this true of such 

 heat loving things as peppers and tomatoes. 



Owing to the quite general practice of buying 

 these plants of the commercial gardeners or 

 florists a much smaller area of ground is devoted 

 to their growth than would be the case were 

 the plants grown in one's own hotbeds where the 



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