1 8 GARDEN PROFITS 



it is a seed-bed for early plants; during the later 

 months for particularly tender sorts, or the fall 

 ripening varieties; all through the summer for 

 raising succession crops, or such moisture-loving 

 plants as lettuce, which can be kept watered and 

 shaded if necessary; in the fall, for lengthening the 

 season for the less bulky plants, and for the grow- 

 ing of cabbage, roots, etc., for winter use; in winter, 

 your exhausted hotbed becomes a cold frame, where 

 parsley, violets, kale, etc., etc., can be grown for 

 a continuous supply till the time comes to once 

 more start the hot manure. 



GROWING PLANTS IN A CHICKEN BROODER 



A simple method for building the hotbed is given 

 in the next chapter (page 107), but a certain re- 

 sourceful amateur made use of an old, discarded 

 chicken brooder, and obtained excellent results 

 with a very little outlay. For the heater, he used 

 a common kerosene lamp, which he operated 

 through a cellar window. The brooder was set 

 against the house, outside this window, on top of 

 a square frame which raised the heating drum above 

 the lamp chimney, and which was banked up with 

 earth, to prevent the loss of heat. Around the 

 heating drum, which resembled an inverted pan 

 with holes in the sides, and half an inch from it, was 

 fixed a strip of tin 4 inches high. The earth filled 

 the space outside this tin "fence," and the one- 

 half inch space allowed for the escape of the heated 

 air. Even the surface space of the drum was not 



