56 



HOT-BEDS 



[chap. 



a stick : ^vhatever heat there is must discover itself at the top of the 

 bed, and there it is that your finger, well poked down into the centre 

 of the bed, will enable you to judge of this matter a great deal bet- 

 ter than anything else. It is a very delicate matter : it is one of the 

 things that demands the greatest possible attention ; for the heat 

 of dung, though it wi'l not probably come to a blaze, in any case, 

 as a hay-rick sometimes will, will burn as completely as fire ; 

 and, if the earth be put on too soon, it will burn the earth into a 

 sort of cinder, in which nothing will ever grow until that earth has 

 been for some time exposed to .he atmosphere. You must therefore 

 be very careful to ascertain that the burning powers of the bed are 

 passed, before you put on the earth. The rule for arriving at a 

 certainty of this knowledge is this : the next morning after you 

 have made the bed, poke your fore-finger well down into the 

 centre of the top of it ; and continue to do the same every morn- 

 ing and every evening, or more frequently, ^ou will find the heat 

 increase, till (if the bed be a strong one) the heat be too great for 

 you to endure your finger in it for a moment : soon after this, you 

 will find the heat begin to decline ; and, as soon as you can bear 

 your finger in it without any inconvenience, you may put on the 

 earth all over the bed to about six inches' depth, which earth ought 

 not to be as dry as dust ; but ought, at the same time, not to 

 be wet. 



54. Thus is the bed ready for the receiving of seeds or plants : 

 thus is the hot-bed made : these are the general instructions for 

 the makiiig of hot-beds, which are to be of different heights, of 

 different strength, and managed subsequently in a different man- 

 ner, according with the nature of the different plants to be culti- 

 vated in them, and according to the season of the year, when the 

 sowing, planting, and cultivation, are to take place. Cucumbers 

 and melons are, in England, the principal things for the rearing of 

 which hot-beds are usually made : there are, however, several other 

 things which are forced forward by the means of hot-beds ; and, in 

 the treating of cucumbers and melons, and of those other sorts of 

 garden plants which are raised in hot-beds, I shal!, under the 

 names of these several plants, in the alphabetical list, give direction 

 for the management of the hot-beds in which they are placed. A 

 hot-bed for the purpose of getting early radishes is a very difierent 

 thing from a hot-bed adapted for the raising of melons and cucum- 

 bers ; and, therefore, no general direction for the management of 



