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lumber, and there were enough planks to make a bed 

 twelve by eight feet; this proved to be all the space 

 we could possibly have used. 



The inside pit was dug four feet deep and all the 

 excavated soil was thrown to one side in a pile. 

 When the side plank walls were finally made solid to 

 the four corner posts, they were given a generous 

 coat of tar to prevent rotting under the soil which 

 would eventually cover them. While this tar was 

 soaking in, we had the earth dug away four feet in 

 depth on the outside of the walls, and after the outer 

 planks had been given another coating of tar we 

 then brought many barrow loads of pine needles and 

 dumped them in the outside trench, trampling the 

 needles down as firmly as possible. This was to pre- 

 vent the frost forming close to the outer walls of the 

 hotbed. After the needles had settled, the pile of 

 excavated soil was banked over them and up to the 

 very top of the hotbed, the sides of which extended, 

 two feet at the top and one foot at the bottom, above 

 the original surface of earth. The clay subsoil 

 made this bank almost as hard and impervious to 

 rain washing as if it had been cement. 



The bed must be built with a slope to the south, 

 with a drop of about a foot, so the glass may shed 



140 



