CHAPTER XXIII 



Other Plant Protectors 



The beginner in gardening often feels that cold-frames or 

 hot-beds are too much for him to handle. To begin with, 

 they cost a good deal, especially the hot-bed, with its sub- 

 frame, top-frame, sash, mats, and shutters. And again they 

 are heavy. Even a junior sash might, in a wind, tax the 

 strength of a very young person. 



But these are no reasons for giving up frames entirely. 

 They help so much that if we can use them, we should. I pro- 

 pose to explain how we can make a beginning in the use of 

 frames, even if we have but a single one big enough for only a 

 single plant. And at the same time I shall suggest a sub- 

 stitute for glass. 



Over in France (where there are, I suppose, the best gar- 

 deners in the world, raising wonderful vegetables on small 

 patches of ground, of which they use every corner, even to the 

 fiat roofs of the houses), they use individual covers for sepa- 

 rate plants. Bell-glasses are found to be the best: big 

 tongueless bells of glass which can be placed over the heads of 

 lettuce, or of young cauliflowers, to protect them at night or 

 on cold days. Nobody uses them here ; at least they are not 

 on sale in America. But we can use some kind of substitute. 



Nothing is so good as glass, which lets in light on all sides. 

 But glass is expensive, heavy, and brittle. We can instead 

 use boxes, of which the top and bottom have been knocked 

 off. Tiny frames these are, and for sash we can use single 



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