KITCHEN-GARDENING. 145 



may be carefully made to admit heat from the fresh linings, so 

 as to enliven the heat of the bed. 



A thermometer should always be at hand at the time of 

 forcing, to be used, when necessary, to regulate the heat in the 

 beds ; and the water that is used to plants cultivated in frames, 

 should be warmed to the temperature of the air, or according 

 to the heat required for the various kind of plants. 



FOECING ASPARAGUS IN HOTBEDS. 



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 hotbeds, be- 

 cause the heat from tan is more regular ; yet a suitable bed 

 may be formed in a deep hotbed 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 immoderately before it is made 

 into a bed. 



For the purpose of keeping up a regular heat, a lining of hot 

 dung should be applied around the frame, and changed as 

 occasion requires. 



If there be a strong heat in a bed, slide down the sashes till 

 it begins to decline. The temperature at night should never 

 be under 50, and it may rise to 65 without injury ; when the 

 buds begin to appear, as much air must be daily admitted as 

 the weather will permit. In two or three days after the beds 

 are planted, the heat will begin to rise, when the beds should 

 have a moderate supply of water, applied from a watering-pot 

 with the rose attached, and repeated every three or four days. 



A frame of ordinary size, calculated for three sashes, will hold 

 from three to five hundred plants, according to their age and 

 size ; and will, if properly managed, yield a dish every day for 

 about three weeks. On the above estimate, if a constant suc- 

 cession of Asparagus be required, it will be necessary to plant 

 a bed every eighteen or twenty days. 



Rhubarb and Sea-Kale may be, and sometimes are, forced in 



7 



