CHAPTER III 



HOTBEDS 



The hotbed is so integral a part of the garden that 

 it should precede rather than follow the construction 

 of the garden itself, especially if the laying out of 

 this is left until spring. For, while the ground is 

 still cold with the snow and frosts of winter and the 

 weather offers little inducement to out-door work, the 

 hotbed with its mass of hot manure, underneath its 

 covering of warm, mellow earth, is pushing and coax- 

 ing forward, by heat and moisture and sunshine — 

 all the potent forces of the still distant summer — the 

 tiny seeds and roots and cuttings entrusted to its 

 care, so that when the beds of the garden shall finally 

 have been spaded and fertilized and raked and nour- 

 ished by sun and rain and drying winds into just 

 the right condition to receive them, they shall be 

 ready by the dozens and scores and hundreds, to re- 

 spond to the call for plants and still more plants, for 

 the possibilities of a packet of seeds, sown under fa- 

 vorable conditions, are out of all proportion to their 

 cost. Even the first cost of a really first class hotbed 



21 



