FORCING ASPARAGUS. 105 



sashes should be covered with mats and boards every night. 

 If full air cannot be admitted in the day time, the sashes 

 must be slidden down to Jet off the steam, at the same time 

 mats may be laid over the aperture, to prevent cold air 

 entering to the plants. 



If the bottom heat in a bed be too violent, which is some- 

 times the case, means must be used to decrease it. This is 

 generally effected by making holes in the bed with a stake 

 sharpened at the end, or with a crow-bar; which hole* 

 should be filled up when the heat is sufficiently reduced. 

 in lining hot-beds, if the heat is reduced in the body of the 

 beds, holes may be carefully made to admit heat from the 

 fresh linings, so as to enliven the heat of the bed. 



A Fahrenheit Thermometer should be always at hand, 

 at the time of forcing, to be used when necessary, to regu- 

 late the heat in the beds ; and the water that is used in 

 cultivating plants in frames, should be warmed to the tem- 

 perature of the air, or according to the heat required for the 

 various kinds of plants, which will be shown in the annexed 

 articles. 



FORCING ASPARAGUS IN HOT-BEDS. 



As Asparagus is apt to grow weak and slender by extreme 

 bottom heat, it is forced with greater success, and with less 

 trouble, in flued pits in a hot-house, than in dung hot-beds, 

 because the heat from tan is more regular ; but a very suit- 

 able bed may be formed in a deep hot-bed frame, made in 

 the usual way. If dung alone, or a mixture of dung and 

 leaves be used, it should be in a state past heating violently 

 before it is made into a bed ; but if the gardener has no 

 choice of materials, he may make his hot-bed in the usual 

 way, and if the depth of heating materials be two feet, he 

 may lay on a foot of old hot-bed dung, tan or any light 

 compost, that will admit of the heat passing through it. 



It may be necessary to state further, that though too much 

 bottom heat should be avoided, heat is necessary to the 

 production of the vegetable in a moderate time, which is 

 generally effected in a month or six weeks after the oow* 



