HOT-BEDS CHAP. 



persons recommend to put a sharp-pointed stick down a 

 foot, or a foot and a half into the bed, to ascertain the 

 degree of the heat. Your finger is a great deal better 

 than a stick : whatever heat there is must discover itself 

 at the top of the bed, and there it is that your finger, 

 well poked down into the centre of the bed, will enable 

 you to judge of this matter a great deal better than any 

 thing else. It is a very delicate matter : it is one of the 

 things that demands the greatest possible attention ; for, 

 the heat of dung, though it will not probably come to a 

 blaze, in any case, as a hay- rick sometimes will, it will 

 burn as completely as fire j and, if the earth be put on 

 too soon, it will burn the earth into a sort of cinder, in 

 which nothing will ever grow until that earth has been 

 for some time exposed to the atmosphere. You must, 

 therefore, be very careful to ascertain that the burning 

 powers of the bed are passed, before you put on the 

 earth. The rule for arriving at a certainty of this know- 

 ledge is this : the next morning after you have made the 

 bed, poke your fore-finger well down into the centre of 

 the top of it ; and continue to do the same every morn- 

 ing and every evening, or more frequently. You will 

 find the heat increase, till (if the bed be a strong one) 

 the heat be too great for you to endure your finger in it 

 for a moment : soon after this, you will find the heat 

 begin to decline ; and, as soon as you can bear your 

 finger in it without any inconvenience, you may put on 

 the earth all over the bed to about six inches depth, 

 which earth ought not to be as dry as dust ; but ought, 

 at the same time, not to be wet. 



55. Thus is the bed ready for the receiving of seeds or 



I 



