SEEDS 



HE third winter we spent in Florida, and as we did 

 not return home until the first of April, I had to 

 resort to other methods than mantel-raised seed- 

 lings, which while interesting was not practical, 

 and determined to raise my annuals in a hotbed. I love ad- 

 ventures and perils if closely attended by escapes and had 

 been duly impressed with the manifold difficulties of Adam's 

 hotbed for vegetables. I like the idea of playing guardian to a 

 hundred tiny souls, fending them from frost, too much sun, too 

 much heat, too little water, well knowing that, if like Homer, I 

 nodded a moment, destruction would follow. As soon as the 

 frost was sufficiently out of the ground to work which means 

 that the earth had thawed out to a depth of a foot or eighteen 

 inches, and beneath that all was still solid ice I dug out a 

 small grave-like hole two and a half feet wide and four feet 

 long, the dimensions agreeing with a discarded window cas- 

 ing, and its accompanying storm-window. I went down about 

 two feet or more, the earth thawing as I dug, and then Adam 

 was summoned to give further advice. He brought fresh 

 manure and put it in to the depth of a foot or more, trampling 

 it down hard with his big rubber boots, and then we fitted in 

 the frame, tilting it toward the south so that the back edge was 

 six inches above the ground and the front edge two. We care- 

 fully banked it around with turf, so that no cold could get in 

 about the edges, and I got some finely pulverized loam from 

 my compost heap, and covered the manure to the depth of 

 about five inches. The glass was put on to remain a few days, 



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