238 The American Flower Garden 



will shield it from northern blasts, so much the better. Concrete, 

 in the ratio of one to seven parts of sharp sand, has come to be 

 regarded as the cheapest and cleanest permanent wall for the bed. 

 Any day-labourer can fill the moulds under intelligent direction. 

 Brick makes a good retaining wall, too; but many people use 

 planks to line the excavation, which should be two and a half 

 feet deep. Dig out the pit at that uniform depth and make it as 

 long as required. Hotbed sashes, as generally sold in the trade, 

 are three by six feet, so the bed's length will be a number of feet 

 divisible by three, inside measurement. Sashes glazed and 

 painted cost less than three dollars each. It is desirable to par- 

 tition off spaces three feet wide, not only to support the sashes, 

 but to separate plants that require much heat from those 

 that require a little. On top of the concrete, brick, or plank 

 walls and some people leave merely the earthen walls without 

 any reinforcement place a wooden frame eighteen inches high 

 at the back and a foot high in front, which will give sufficient slope 

 to the sashes placed upon it to shed the rain and to catch the 

 sunlight. Cross-pieces for the sashes to slide on when one wants 

 to open and close the frames are laid on top of the partitions. 



Fresh horse-manure from the stables, added to one-third 

 its bulk of litter or leaves for fuel, needs to be well mixed and 

 packed down in a compact mass by tramping in order that fermen- 

 tation may begin. In a few days the escape of steam from the 

 hot heap will indicate that it is time to turn it over for a second 

 fermentation, which will require two or three days more. The 

 manure is now ready to be laid in layers well tramped down in the 

 bottom of the pit to the required depth about two feet. On 

 top of it place two inches of fine, old black manure and six or eight 

 inches of well-rotted and sifted sod prepared with sand and 



