126 THE KITCHEN GARDEN, [FEB. 



Air must be admitted to them every day when the weather is any 

 way favorable, by raising the upper ends of the glasses from about 

 half an inch to an inch or two, or in proportion to the sharpness or 

 mildness of the outward air and internal heat and steam of the bed. 



In giving the plants air, it is a good method at this season, espe- 

 cially in severe cutting weather, to fasten a mat across the ends 

 of the lights were tilted, to hang down detachedly over the place 

 where the air enters the frame ; the mat will break the wind and 

 sharp air before it reaches the plants, and yet there will be a due 

 proportion admitted without exposing them directly to it, and there 

 will also be full liberty to let the steam pass off. 



Likewise, in covering the glasses on nights with mats, if there be 

 a strong heat and great steam in the bed, let the lights be raised a 

 little behind when you cover up ; let them remain so all night, and 

 use the mats as above mentioned, to hang down low before the place 

 where the glasses are raised ; but this must be done with caution in 

 very severe frost. 



One great article to be attended to now is to support a constant 

 temperate heat in the hot-bed, so as to keep the plants in a regular 

 growing state about 65 at night and 70 to 80 in the day. The 

 first thing to be observed towards this is that in six or eight days 

 after ridging out the plants, provided the heat of the bed is become 

 moderate, it will be very proper to give some outward protection of 

 dry, long litter, waste hay, fern, straw, leaves of trees, &c., laying 

 it close around the sides a foot thick, and as high as five or six 

 inches up the sides of the frame ; but this will be particularly ser- 

 viceable in very wet weather, but more especially in driving cold 

 rains or snow, and also if there be cold piercing winds, all of which 

 would chill the bed, and, without the above precaution, would some- 

 times occasion such a sudden and great decay of the heat as to prove 

 the manifest destruction of the plants ; whereas the above lining will 

 defend the bed, and preserve a fine heat till the dung begins naturally 

 to decline or decay of itself, which is generally in about three weeks 

 or a month after the bed is made, when the warmth of it must be 

 renewed by adding a lining of fresh hot dung close to its sides and 

 ends. 



But for the first week or ten days after the plants are ridged out 

 into this hot-bed, mind that their roots have not too much heat; for 

 it sometimes happens that a bed after the mould and plants are in 

 (the earth confining the heat and steam below in the dung) will begin 

 afresh to heat so violently as to be in danger of burning the earth at 

 the bottom of the hills, and without some precaution is taken the 

 burning will soon reach the roots of the plants ; therefore, for the 

 first week or ten days, let the bottom of these hills be at times exa- 

 mined by drawing away a little of the earth below; and, if any 

 burning appears, remove the burnt earth, replace it with new, and, 

 by drawing some away quite around, let the hills be kept as narrow 

 as they will just stand, so as to support the plants, and let them 

 remain till the danger of burning is over, when you may replace it 

 again. 



When the great heat abates, or the roots of the plants begin to 



