152 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



remarkabl}'^ well. I have continued to use these warm frames 

 every year since, with uniformly successful results, as regards 

 growing the crops, though of course the market is not always 

 equally good for the products. 



For the best and most easily managed frame I prefer one only 

 six feet wide, with a fence to lean the mats against when not on 

 the frame, having a one and a quarter inch pipe carried around 

 the frame, on both sides, four inches below the glass, and heated 

 b3' a small hot water boiler, under pressure of about ten pounds to 

 the inch. The reason for preferring hot water circulation to steam 

 is that in moderate weather the temperature can be more easily 

 regulated by regulating the fire, than by steam pipes. The same 

 results could probably be attained bj' having two or three steam 

 pipes of less diameter, and shutting off the steam from part of 

 them in mild weather. 



These frames are very convenient in growing the crops I have 

 mentioned, which need to be grown in the open air in spring and 

 fall without glass, the frame and glass being placed over the bed 

 as cold weather comes on, thus avoiding transplanting, and they 

 would answer equally well, I should judge, for man\' flowering 

 plants of low growth, which need but little artificial heat, such as 

 violets, pansies, primulas, and many of the Dutch bulbs. 



It is astonishing how little coal is required to keep out frost, 

 which is about all that is Heeded with such hardy plants as I have 

 mentioned. When mats are used on the bed, it will require for a 

 bed two hundred feet long and six feet wide only about three or 

 four tons of coal for the winter, to keep the plants in growing 

 condition, and make the frame produce fully double what it would 

 do without the heat. Every one who has attempted to run a cold 

 frame in a severe winter, knows how hard it is to keep out frost, 

 even with double mats and shutters. By the aid of hot water or 

 steam, no shutters at all are required, and much of the time not 

 even mats. Such an arrangement, however, will not grow good 

 lettuce, without a little bottom heat in cold weather. 



Growing Black Hamburg Grapes Under Glass that is 

 Used for Other Purposes in Winter. — Ever}' market gardener 

 knows that there is usually a considerable number of hot-bed 

 sashes in every market garden which are not used, unless for 

 growing cucumbers and melons, after the middle of April, till the 

 next winter. The early cucumber crop has of late years been far 

 less profitable than formerly, and it occurred to me a few years 



