Feb. J THE KITCHEN GARDEN. |jy 



sharp air before it reaches the plants, and yet there will be a due 

 proportion admitted without exposing them directly to it, and there 

 will also be full liberty to let the steam pass oft*. 



Likewise, in covering the glasses on nights with mats, if there 

 be a strong heat and great steam in the bed, let the lights be raised 

 a little behind when you cover up: let them remain so all night, 

 and use the mats as above mentioned, to hang down low before the 

 place where the glasses are raised, but this must be done with cau- 

 tion in very severe frost. 



One great article to be attended to now, is to support a constant 

 temperate heat in the hot-bed, so as to keep the plants in a regular 

 growing state. The first thing to be observed towards this is, that 

 in six or eight days after ridging out the plants, provided the heat 

 of the bed is become moderate, it will be very proper to give some 

 outward protection of dry, long litter, waste hay, fern, straw, leaves 

 of trees, &c, laying it close around the sides a foot thick, and as 

 high as five or six inches up the sides of the frame; but this will 

 be particularly serviceable in very wet weather, but more especial- 

 ly in driving cold rains or snow, and also if there be cold piercing 

 winds, all of which would chill the bed, and, without the above pre- 

 caution, would sometimes occasion such a sudden and great decay of 

 the heat as to prove the manifest destruction of the plants; whereas 

 the above lining will defend the bed, and preserve a fine heat till 

 the dung begins naturally to decline or decay of itself, which is 

 generally in about three weeks or a month after the bed is made, 

 when the warmth of it must be renewed by adding a lining of fresh 

 hot dung close to its sides and ends. 



But for the first week or ten days after the plants are ridged out 

 into this hot-bed, mind that their roots have not too much heat; for 

 it sometimes happens that a bed after the mould and plants are in, 

 (the earth confining the heat and steam below in the dung,) will 

 begin afresh to heat so violently as to be in danger of burning the 

 earth at the bottom of the hills; and without some precaution is 

 taken, the burning will soon reach the roots of the plants; there- 

 fore, for the first week or ten days, let the bottom of these hills be 

 at times examined, by drawing away a little of the earth below; 

 and, if any burning appears, remove the burnt earth, replace it with 

 new, and by drawing some away quite around, let the hills be kept 

 as narrow as they will just stand, so as to support the plants, and 

 let them remain till the danger of burning is over, when you may 

 replace it again. 



When the great heat abates, or the roots of the plants begin to 

 appear through the sides of the hills, then add some fresh, light, 

 rich earth all around them; about three days after you may lay 

 some more; and in two or three days after that you may earth the 

 bed all over to the full thickness. But before you lay the fresh 

 earth to the sides of the hills, let it be first laid a few hours, or for 

 one night in the frame, up towards the sides, that it may acquire 

 an equal degree of warmth with that in the bed; then, being applied 

 as above, it will not be in danger of chilling the roots of the plant-;. 



The next particular care is that of lining the hot-bed when the 



