THE HANDLING OF THE PLANTS 169 
The hotbed is used for the very early starting of plants; 
and when the plants have outgrown the bed, or have become 
too thick, they are transplanted into cooler hotbeds or into 
coldframes. There are some crops, however, that are car- 
ried to full maturity in the hotbed itself, as radishes and 
lettuce. 
The date at which the hotbed may be started with safety 
depends almost entirely on the means at command of heating 
it and on the skill of the operator. In the northern states, 
where outdoor gardening does not begin until the first or the 
last of May, hotbeds are sometimes started as early as January; 
but they are ordinarily delayed until early in March. 
- The heat for hotbeds is commonly supplied by the fermenta- 
tion of horse manure. It is important that the manure be as 
uniform. as possible in composition and texture, that it come 
from highly fed horses, and is practically of thesame age. The 
best results are usually secured with manure from livery 
stables, from which it can be obtained in large quantities in a 
short space of time. Perhaps as much as one half of the whole 
material should be of litter or straw that has been used in the 
bedding. 
The manure is placed in a long and shallow square-topped pile, 
not more than four or six feet high, as a rule, and is then allowed 
to ferment. Better results are generally obtained if the manure 
is piled under cover. If the weather is cold and fermentation 
does not start readily, wetting the pile with hot water may 
start it. The first fermentation is nearly always irregular; 
that is, it begins unequally in several placesin the pile. In order 
to make the fermentation uniform, the pile must be turned oc- 
casionally, taking care to break up all hard lumps and to dis- 
tribute the hot manure throughout the mass. It is sometimes 
necessary to turn the pile five or six times before it is finally 
used, although half this number of turnings is ordinarily suffi- 
cient. When the pile is steaming uniformly throughout, it is 
