NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



123 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE FARMER'S HOT-BED. 



Friend Cole: — I regret that I have been unable 

 to furnish the article I promised you in relation to 

 what I shall call the Farmer^s Hot-Bed at an ear- 

 lier date, for the season of preparing them has now 

 arrived, and if my suggestions shall benefit any of 

 your readers, for the present season, it will be OU' 

 ly those who act at once in relation to the matter 

 Having a great fondness for a good garden and its 

 varied products, I have oftentimes, in years past, 

 felt the want of some cheap arrangement, by which 

 I could bring forward certain vegetables earlier than 

 I could get them, by planting out the seeds in my 

 garden, in the usual way. 



A hot -bed with a glass frame, &c., used by our 

 best cultivators, was out of the question, for it cost 

 too much, for a poor man. After a variety of 

 efforts to effect the desired object, cheaply and cer- 

 tainly, I have settled on the method I am about to 

 describe. The engraving at the head of the col- 

 umn will give the reader, at a glance, the manner 

 of constructing the bed, which need not be more 

 than four feet wide and six or eight feet long, ac- 

 cording to the fancy of my brother farmer. 



Some bits of old plank, or even inch boards, will 

 answer for material, with a ievf stakes to hold them 

 in place. Tlie stakes at the ends may be crotched, 

 as in the cut, to support the polls or straight stakes 

 may be used and the tops sawed off, after being 

 driven, and the polls fastened on the top with nails. 

 In constructing the bed no boards will be needed in 

 the rear if it is backed, as it should be, against a 

 building, a board fence, or a close wall. The bed 

 should, if possible, have a south-eastern or south- 

 ern exposure, though I once succeeded very well 

 with one having an eastern exposure. About two 

 feet, or thirty inches high in the rear, and eighteen 

 or twenty inches front, will give sufficient depth. 

 The enclosed space should be filled, to within six 

 inches of the top, with fresh unfermented manure 

 from the horse stable, which must be trodden well 

 together. Four or five inches of good loam from 

 the garden, enriched with a few ashes, a little 

 ground plaster, and some fine well rotted manure, 

 spread over the surface, will complete the bed. 

 The two poles placed lengthwise, across and over 

 the bed, are put there to support on old blanket 

 rug or piece of sail cloth with which the bed must 

 be nightly covered, from the time of planting it un- 

 til the plants are removed. The cloth should be 

 thrown off in the morning, as soon as the sun is 

 up. A few short boards placed near the bed will 

 • answer to protect it in case of a storni. 



The bed may be constructed and fitted ready for 

 planting, by an active man who has the materials, 

 in two hours. We will now proceed to plant it. 



Take your jack-knife in your pocket, Mr. Farmer, 

 and visit your wood lot, if you have one, and if 

 not, your neighbor's, with his consent of course. 

 Look out some white birches three or four inches 

 through. Pieces of old pasteboard, and some oth- 

 er cheap materials, will answer. Split tiiebark up 

 and down and then peel it ofl:" in strips about four 

 or five inches in width. Two or three dozen will 

 do. Get your wife, if you have one (and if you have 

 none, drop the hot-bed for this season and go and 

 look up one,) to sew with a strong thread the ends 

 of each strip together, lapping them half an inch at 

 top and an inch at bottom, so that the pot maybe a 

 little less in diameter at bottom than at top. Two 

 or three stiches each at top and bottom will do. Pre- 

 pare some loam from the ground, as directed above, 

 and fill each pot, setting it down on the floor dur- 

 ing the operation, and pressing the earth in pretty 

 firmly. When within one inch of being filled, put 

 in your seeds. Of the squash, about two, of the 

 melon or cucumber, four, about two inches apart, 

 and cover them, pressing the earth moderately up- 

 on the seeds. Place your pots close together on 

 the centre of your bsd and fill the space between 

 them with loam, banking up around the outside 

 row of the pots with the same material. Your pots 

 will occupy but a small part of the surface of your 

 bed, and on the remaining portion you can sow your 

 tomato, lettuce, pepper and cabbage seeds, and 

 grow fine large plants by the time your garden is 

 sufficiently warm to have them transplanted. 



The ammonia given off from the fermenting ma^ 

 nure, will pass up through the soil of your pots and 

 other parts of the surface of the bed, and increase 

 greatly its fertility and the growth of your plants. 

 When the roots of your squash and cucumber plants, 

 begin to show themselves at the bottom of the pots, 

 which you can learn by raising one of them occa- 

 sionally, they must be removed to your garden. 

 Prepare your hills for receiving them just as you 

 would if you were about to plant the seed. That 

 done, open the centre of each hill to sufficient depth 

 to receive the pot, and have the surface on the same 

 level with the soil around. Press your pot firmly 

 in its place and then with the point of your knife, 

 clip the string at top and bottom and peel off the 

 bark from the ball of earth containing the plant. 

 The roots of the plant have by this time formed a 

 complete net work through the ball of earth and 

 prevent its falling apart, as you remove the bark. 

 Bring the earth around the plant and pi-ess it pret- 

 ty firmly; give it a little pure water (if there be 

 rum in it the plant will die) and your plant, if the 

 earth has become tolerable, warm will hardly know 

 that it has been removed from the hot-bed. By 

 this method, which can be adopted with little labor 

 and no expense, two or three weeks are gained for 

 plants which require a long season or of which an 

 early product is desired. If the bed becomes too 

 hot, raise the pots and put more soil under them 

 Give the bed water from time to time with the wa- 

 ter-pot, as you can graduate the quantity tlius bet- 

 ter than by leaving it uncovered during a shower. 



If you have small boxes, as every farmer should 

 have, to protect plants when first transplanted, or 

 from the effects of cold night air, place them over 

 your squash and uk'Icju plants for the first twenty- 

 four hours and during the nights of the first week 

 after removing them to your garden. By this meth- 

 od I raised in the year 1818, on a piece of ground 

 twenty-two feet square, a crop of winter squashes, 



