496 N'exv System of heating Plant Structures. 



towns as Bristol, Birmingham, or Manchester, where no such 

 thing is to be had at a price within reach of the middle 

 and^'lower classes before midsummer. Ah ! my dear Sir, if 

 this kingdom were but well farmed, there would be food and 

 labour for all the people ; but, if it were gardened, there could 

 not be found hands enough to cultivate its riches, without 

 recalling our emigrants or otherwise increasing the population, 

 to subdue the earth that hath run wild for ages, from sloth and 

 a sort of monkey-like mimickry, that induces one man to sow a 

 spot and a sort of grain merely because others do the same ; 

 and, where he cannot get things to grow like other people's, 

 he does not attempt to surmount the barrier by the ladder of his 

 own contrivance, and, with the materials that may abound in the 

 locality, use his best endeavours to equal or surpass his more 

 favoured rivals. 



I do not claim the honour of inventing this system of heatmg, 



for I learned it from an old farmer who dried oats on a kiln (or 



hotbed) constructed of sticks and stone in the end of his barn, 



with an ingle of peats. This was the first and the last straw-kiln 



I ever saw ; and though extremely ill suited as a kiln, from the risk 



of fire, and the tedious and laborious processes to be gone 



through, it would have made an excellent hotbed, and on such, 



as near as circumstances would permit, I reared my tender 



annuals here this season, and showed them to several practical 



men, with a red fire just under them. I, therefore, claim the 



honour of being the first in England, as far as I am aware, that 



ever raised the heat for a hotbed used in horticulture right over 



an open fire ; and lest it be thought a novelty, let me record, 



for the honour of Scodand, that I learned it from an old veteran 



of nearly one hundred years' standing, who related in his own 



barn, and by the light of the ingle ee, his youthful employments, 



and among others, and with a rancour that cooled only with his 



dust, how he bore arms at CuUoden in 1745. 



In conclusion, therefore, I would hint to all whom it may con- 

 cern — if you cannot find muck to make a stinking hotbed on 

 the ground, you perhaps, like me, may succeed in making a 

 sweeter and better, ay, and ten times cheaper, on the Jirst 

 jloor. 



Alton Towers, July 13. 1841. 



P.S. The soot that may impregnate the superincumbent soil 

 will act as a manure if properly managed ; and though there may 

 be a burning heat in the bed, no woodlouse will ever enter such a 

 chamber of smoke, nor, indeed, any other creature that breathes 

 the breath of life choose it for an abode, or even endure its atmo- 

 sphere for a night. No more talk of melon plants running all to 

 leaf, and not fruiting by getting down in the dung of the bed below : 



