THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



59 



54. The common type of hotbed covered in anticipa- 

 tion of a hard night 



55. The covering of old floor-matting drawn aside 

 to show the excellent home-made straw mats 



56. The best protection for a weaK place. Old news, 

 papers covering the joints 



made of four inches of concrete, with an air- 

 space of six inches, then four inches of con- 

 crete, and the whole fourteen inches are 

 covered over with two or three inches of this 

 compound. The beds are long, one admit- 

 ting of seven 3 x 6-foot frames, while the 

 other has eight of the same size. The cover- 

 ing — which all hotbeds must have to keep 

 out the intense cold of night, consists of three 

 thicknesses of burlap sewed together, a stick 

 being run through one end just as a stick is 

 run through the end of a window shade, 

 except that this one projects a few inches at 

 either end to form a handle. The other end 

 of the burlap is fastened to one end of the 

 hotbed frame. The burlap is rolled upon 

 this stick when uncovering the frames. On 

 the other end of the frame is a roll made on 

 the same plan, but the material is waxed 

 sheeting. This was made by spreading a 

 low-grade melted paraffin on common sheet- 

 ing with a calcimine brush. This raincoat 

 is unrolled upon the burlap overcoat to pro- 

 tect the latter from snow and rain. 



These hotbeds were just the thing for a 

 country gentleman with a good-sized place, 

 but for reasons connected with the bank and 

 the children's education we decided to look 

 further. There is a dear old-fashioned farm 

 near us, with all the modern improvements 

 money and ingenuity can provide. We made 

 a pilgrimage thither and found a row of hot- 

 beds watched over and tended by an old 

 French soldier, long since turned gardener. 

 These beds were covered with many strips of 

 old floor-matting, and peeping from under 

 these were straw mats. They looked as 

 though the cold could not possibly penetrate, 

 yet the raw north wind and fine sharp rain 

 were penetrating to the marrow of our 

 bones. 



" Monsieur, can you grow things in them ? " 

 queried my wife (we were sure he could). 



"Yes, madame. There is lettuce and 

 radishes, spinach and violets in them. I will 

 show." 



The veteran uncovered the sash, and as he 

 unrolled the floor - matting, we went into 

 raptures over the straw mats made of golden 

 rye straw, the heads with the grain threshed 

 out, still upon them. 



"Oh, where did you buy them?" 



"I make them myself. You cannot buy," 

 he said. "You cannot buy thick like these. 

 Of small use the ones you buy! The wind 

 gets in and the cold. It kills everything." 



"But how do you make them and where 

 do you get the straw?" 



"I will show you after. The straw — we 

 raise it on the farm. Yes, they are fine, but 

 the matting — it keeps off the rain from the 

 straw, for the straw gets wet; the frost come; 

 then my plants all freeze. It is much work, 

 I tell you, much work. When it snows, then I 

 must come out and sweep the mats, and shake 

 them, then dry, for I cannot have wet mats!" 

 And he shook his head. "Sometimes when 

 its vera cold I come out in the night." 



What he did in the night he did not say. I 

 doubt very much if he did anything. Prob- 

 ably it was like the mother who goes into the 

 room and looks at a restless child. There 

 is nothing to do, but she feels better when she 

 has looked in. 



Our Franco-Prussian friend now rolled 

 back the thick straw mats and disclosed a 

 still further protection, a time-honored one, 

 known to all country dwellers as the best of 

 chest-protectors, viz., old newspapers. These 

 were laid all around the edge of the frame, 

 while the glass rested at the upper end upon 

 some more. 



We laughed. The old soldier laughed, 

 too, slapping his thigh and exclaiming, "The 

 Frenchman, he have a good head!" 



Then I took in some details of the con- 

 struction of the frame itself. The slant was 

 greater than any we had seen heretofore, and 

 it seemed good. The front edge rested 

 almost on the earth, while the entire frame 

 was banked up with strawy manure. In 

 fact, the glass rested upon the straw at the 

 front. The back edge must have been raised 

 nearly two feet, and, of course, the beds were 

 protected by a high board fence on the north, 

 while the slant of the frames was almost due 

 south. The snow had been shoveled from 

 around them, and they were set far enough 

 from the fence for a person to work at the 

 back of the frames. Our friend the gar- 

 dener slid the sash upward, and I was sur- 

 prised to find the plants so deep — a foot at 

 least below the front edge. I did not ask 

 any question. My common sense told me 

 he had done this as an extra precaution 

 against frost, for frost seldom penetrates 

 the ground more than a foot, even in the 

 open. 



The earth was fine and rich and the heads 

 of lettuce beautiful rosettes of green. 



"Why, the walls of these beds are made of 

 brick!" we exclaimed. "Tell us why you 

 made them that way." 



"I will tell you," replied the Frenchman. 

 "First they were made of boards, but the 

 mice and the rats they come in and eat my 

 seeds when they just start and I can have 

 nothing. So I say to myself, 'I fix you,' and 

 then I build these. I dig out for my founda- 

 tion three feet or more, then I put in one foot 

 cement mixed with gravel and broke glass 

 (the rat he not gnaw through that), then I 

 build up my walls with brick and the rat he 



57. Our friend the veteran soldier.gardener shows 

 with proper pride the evidences of his sKilf 



58. A simple form of running sash. Not as 

 sive as the grooved Kind in Fig. 52 



59. How the skilful gardener utilizes home resources 

 by making his wonderful straw mats 



