An old brooder 
A hotbed heated without manure. 
was utilized and a common lamp 
(Lemon Queen) and a few bulbs of summer 
hyacinth. 
The seeds were sown in coldframes and 
the plants were in fine condition when it 
came time to set them out. Tulips had 
been grown in the bed and when the bulbs 
were taken up, the soil needed no fertilizing. 
The first season the celosias chosen 
were yellow, making the color scheme yel- 
low and blue. The substitution of the 
red in place of the yellow seemed a decided 
improvement. 
The bed itself is level, but as the taller 
plants are in the centre it has the effect of 
a mound, every flower being in sight from 
any point of view. The cost of the bulbs 
is not included, but they might well have 
been omitted. 
Heating a Hotbed Without 
Manure 
R. E. T., Illinois 
ll HAD long wanted a small hotbed, but 
the difficulties attendant upon securing 
and caring for the heating material seemed 
insurmountable until last spring when I 
used a poultry brooder with satisfactory 
results. I spent. $4.25 for material and 
fuel and raised plants worth $12.05 the 
first season. 
The year before I had made a brooder 
according to designs published in Bulletin 
No. 36 of the Connecticut Experiment 
Station, at Storrs, Conn. This year it 
did. not seem advisable to use it for its 
original purpose so I made a frame eight 
inches high in front and twelve inches high 
in the rear, secured a sash of suitable size 
and placed the whole over a cellar window 
on the south side of the house. 
For heat I used an ordinary lamp which 
could be conveniently tended from the 
cellar by opening the hinged window. At 
night and on extremely cold dark days, the 
glass was covered with an old piece of carpet 
and some gunnybags and I had no difficulty: 
in keeping a temperature of 60 degrees, even 
on nights when the outside temperature was 
zero or lower. 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
Isecured both top and bottom heat in this 
way. A strip of tin four inches high and 
long enough to go around the pan in the 
centre of the floor was procured and fastened 
securely in place about one-half an inch 
from the lower edge of the pan. Then all 
the remaining space was filled with soil. 
This strip allowed the warm air to escape 
from the perforations in the pan. 
Seeds requiring special attention were 
planted in cigar boxes and placed on the 
top of this pan, thus using all the space. 
The first seeds were planted about Feb- 
ruary 15th, and by practising “intensive 
farming” and using a coldframe for harden- 
ing the plants off, I had the following plants 
ready for the garden by the time the ground 
and the weather were suitable: 
9 cannas, worth $ .75 
25 globe artichokes oe 3.00 
200 WhiteHeartcoslettuce. . . . .. . .80 
200 Holyrood hot weatherlettuce . . . . . -80 
MS CUBES 5 9 o 6 6 0 0 2 8 @ 25 
RO peppers 5 5 5 » 59 59 o 9 « -50 
12 RC OTIN ACCES irae = 1.50 
12 verbenas aor ealrece) Ohi a ae ad -§0 
20 petunias Gn Ore poubuniaoc eh chic Wert 5) SG -80 
125 Bermudaonions ....... . 25 
so Drummond’sphlox. . . . ... . 1.00 
ioo turnip-rootedcelery. . . . . .. . -90 
18 asters . 1.00 
Total en DIZEOS 
Coal oil $1.25 
Glass, lumber, etc. 3.00 
ae 4-25 
Balance . $ 7.80 
Beside this I had the advantage of know- 
ing what variety of vegetable plant I was 
raising instead of buying nameless varieties 
from the corner grocer. Also I had the 
pleasure of experimenting with certain 
plants, as cannas, that do not come true 
from seed, but which occasionally give a 
seeding that will more than pay for all the 
time expended in producing it. 
After these plants were removed to the 
coldframe for hardening off I put in some 
sand and rooted cuttings of bedding plants, 
such as geraniums and coleus. And during 
the summer I raised from seed a number of 
hardy perennials for fall planting. 
A new method of propagating lilies, whereby the 
high priced kinds may be produced at lower rates 
The picture on this page, showing the 
hotbed in operation, was taken on a sunny 
day in March. Even at this early date 
the cannas can be plainly seen in the upper 
left hand corner. The canna became a 
DECEMBER, 1908 
Mignonette, verbena, stock and calendula picked 
in the garden after a killing frost 
magnificent bronze leaved beauty, nearly 
ten feet tall, with large branches making a 
clump fourteen inches in diameter. 
Propagating Lilies from Leaf 
Cuttings 
F. H. Horsrorp, Vermont 
I BELIEVE it is not generally known that 
many of the lilies may be grown from 
leaf cuttings. Last winter while experi- 
menting with leaf propagation, my son, 
C. P. Horsford, told me he was going to 
try lilies. I had little faith in his success 
until in about three weeks he showed me 
some well grown bulblets with roots from 
leaf cuttings. Several kinds were tried, 
including the Madonna, Philippine, Brown’s, 
Henry’s, speciosum, longiflorum, sulphureum, 
etc. The only one of these which failed to 
produce bulbs in this way was Henry’s 
lily and I think this was owing to the tempera- 
ture not being right for this kind. 
The accompanying illustration shows how 
Brown’s lily may be propagated in this way. 
Two and even more bulblets are often 
formed at the base of a single leaf. This 
method of increase will probably not pay 
with most of the cheaper kinds, but it may 
show a way by which the higher priced 
bulbs, such as Brown’s lily can be produced 
at lower rates than the markets now afford. 
A temperature of 60 degrees is about 
right for most kinds. The leaves are 
removed from the stems by pulling them off 
.downwardly and sticking the bottom third 
in moist sand as one would do with carnation 
cuttings. Ifthe light should be too strong for 
any length of time a thin covering of tissue 
paper will give about the right amount of 
shade. During long spells of cloudy weather 
the paper should be removed. 
A Garden That Bloomed After 
Frost 
I. M. A., New York 
WY not have all the more prominently 
situated flower beds filled with hardy 
annuals that will outlive the early frosts 
and bloom for weeks after tender plants 
are destroyed by the cold? After having 
