III. AND GREEN-HUUSES. 



heated again sufficiently j and then it should be turned 

 once more, especially if there be a great proportion of 

 long litter in it. If the dung be very dry, and the 

 weather be dry also, and especially if it have a large por- 

 tion of long littery stuff in it, it should be watered with a 

 watering-pot, when it is first mixed up, a watering being 

 given all over the heap at every foot of height that the 

 heap rises to. This is necessary to cause that fermentation 

 without which there cannot be a hot-bed j but, generally 

 speaking, this is not necessary, for dung is seldom flung 

 out with so large a portion of clean straw, as to prevent 

 it from heating when thrown up in a heap. 



51. It is as well to consider it to be a general rule, 

 scarcely ever to be departed from, that the dung should 

 ferment three several times during the space of nine 

 days, before it be put into a hot-bed. Unless this be the 

 case, the heat of the bed (unless the dung be very short 

 at the ^beginning) will not be lasting, and will never be 

 regular j nor will the bed be solid and uniform. It will 

 sink more in some places than in others, and will be 

 hotter in some places than in others j therefore, it is 

 useless to be impatient, since the thing cannot be done 

 well without this previous preparation. 



52. The dung being duly prepared, you make the bed 

 in the following manner, having first made the ground 

 on which it is to stand, perfectly level. If the general 

 surface of the ground round about be on the slope, you 

 must take care so to change the situation of that part of 

 the ground on which the bed is to stand, as to make 

 that part perfectly level. It is not sufficient that you 



