VEGETABLE PLANTS. 9 



derstood by the gardeners of our country, 

 that we will proceed to describe a fire hot- 

 bed in its simplest form, such a one as may 

 be constructed by any farmer or gardener of 

 ordinary intelligence entirely with his own 

 hands, the only outlay necessary more than in 

 the construction of a common manure-bed 

 being for brick of which to build the furnace, 

 and the pipes for constructing the flue. The 

 bed should be built on ground having a natural 

 rise of about one foot in twenty, at least We 

 have constructed them with a rise of one foot 

 in every ten, in length of bed, for fifty feet, and 

 then turned at a right angle and run twenty- 

 five feet with scarcely any rise at all, the flue 

 terminating in a wooden chimney twelve feet 

 high, and with no trouble for draught. The 

 warmest part of such a bed is at the angle, 

 fifty feet from the fire, as the heat readily 

 ascends to that point. It will be understood 

 that these beds differ but little in appearance 

 from a common manure-bed. A trench is exca- 

 vated six feet in width, about two feet in depth, 

 and of any desired length, say from twenty-five 

 to seventy-five feet, or perhaps even longer, 

 though we believe that to be sufficient for one 

 fire. At the lower end of this excavation the 



