SEEDS 
; S4|/HE third winter we spent in Florida, and as we did 
bas ed not return home until the first of April, I had to 
*Al i resort to other methods than mantel-raised seed- 
——<! lings, which while interesting was not practical, 
and determined to raise my annuals in a hotbed. I love ad- 
ventures and perils—if closely attended by escapes—and had 
been duly impressed with the manifold difficulties of Adam’s 
hotbed for vegetables. I like the idea of playing guardian toa 
hundred tiny souls, fending them from frost, too much sun, too 
much heat, too little water, well knowing that, if like Homer, I 
nodded a moment, destruction would follow. As soon as the 
frost was sufficiently out of the ground to work—which means 
that the earth had thawed out to a depth of a foot or eighteen 
inches, and beneath that all was still solid ice—I dug out a 
small grave-like hole two and a half feet wide and four feet 
long, the dimensions agreeing with a discarded window cas- 
ing, and its accompanying storm-window. I went down about 
two feet or more, the earth thawing as I dug, and then Adam 
was summoned to give further advice. He brought fresh 
manure and put itin to the depth of a foot or more, trampling 
it down hard with his big rubber boots, and then we fitted in 
the frame, tilting it toward the south so that the back edge was 
six inches above the ground and the front edge two. We care- 
fully banked it around with turf, so that no cold could get in 
about the edges, and I got some finely pulverized loam from 
my compost heap, and covered the manure to the depth of 
about five inches. The glass was put on to remain a few days, 
49 
