12 



D. M. FERRY & CO'S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 



FOURTH— Such a condition of soil that the ascending stem can easily penetrate it and the young roots speedily find 

 suitable food. We can usually secure this by thorough preparation of the ground and taking care never to sow fine seeds 

 when the ground is wet. Occasionally a heavy or long continued rain followed by a bright sun will so bake and crust the 

 surface that it is impossible for the young plant to find its way through it, or a few days of strong wind will so dry the 

 surface that the young plants will be killed. In such cases the only remedy is to plant again. 



I J* • C U* «•' Not only snould every weed be removed as soon as it appears, but the crust which 



JUulClOUS vAUUVatlOn forms after a rain should be broken up and the ground stirred as soon as it is dry 

 enough to permit it. The more frequently and deeply the soil is stirred while the plants are young, the better, but as they 

 develop and the roots occupy the ground, cultivation should be shallower until it becomes a mere stirring of the surface. 

 The yield and quality of vegetables have often been decidedly lowered by injudiciously deep and close cultivation after 

 the roots of the plants had fully occupied the ground. A very small garden, well cultivated and cared for, will give larger 

 returns and be in every way more satisfactory than a much larger one poorly prepared and neglected. 



How to Build and Manage Hotbeds 



For early vegetables, some provision for starting certain 

 plants earlier than can be done in the open air is desirable: 

 for this purpose nothing is better than a good hotbed and 

 its construction is so simple and the expense so slight that 

 every garden should have one. A hotbed proper not only 

 protects the plants from the cold, but supplies bottom heat. 

 By this term the gardener means that the soil is constantly 

 kept several degrees warmer than the air above, that being 

 the condition, so far as heat is concerned, which is most 

 favorable for rapid and vigorous growth and gardeners 

 usually secure it by making a compact pile of some fer- 

 menting material and covering it with the earth in which 

 the plants are to grow. 



U i* TV/I m. • 1 The best heating material that 



rleating Material is easily available is fresh horse 

 manure, containing a liberal quantity of straw bedding. 

 Such manure, if thrown into a loose pile, will heat violently 

 and unevenly and will soon become cold. What is wanted in 

 the hotbed is a steady and moderate but lasting heat. To 

 secure this, the manure should be forked over, shaken apart 

 and if dry, watered and allowed to stand a few days and 

 then be forked over again, piled and allowed to heat a 

 second time, the object being to get the whole mass into a 

 uniform degree of fermentation and as soon as this is 

 accomplished it is fit for use. 



r> l Some gardeners use sash made especially for hot- 

 oasn beds and glazed with small lights cut from odds and 

 ends and so furnished at very low rates. Such sash can 

 usually be procured in any of our large cities and costs 

 much less than if made to order. For garden use, however, 

 we much prefer a smaller sash that can be easily handled 

 and the use of larger and better glass. We recommend that 

 for home gardens the sash be about two and one-half by 

 four or five feet and that the glass be not less than 10x14, 

 laid with not more than one quarter inch lap. In giving the 

 order to one unaccustomed to the work, it would be well to 

 state what they are to be used for, and that they need to be 

 made like skylight sash. 



rpi »-t This may be made of sound one-inch lum- 



Ine frame ber, the back twelve to fourteen inches 

 high, the front ten to twelve. It should be well fitted to the 

 sash so as to leave as little opening as possible and yet allow 

 the sash to be easily moved up and down, even when the 

 frame is quite wet. 



-pi q .« This should be light, rich, friable. Any con- 

 1 tie oOll siderable amount of clay in it is very objec- 

 tionable. If possible, it should be unfrozen when put into 

 the bed; for this reason it is much better to prepare it the 

 fall before and cover the pile with enough coarse manure 

 or straw to keep out the frost. 



Ml . .1 ry j This requires careful attention 



aRing trie tSed. as future success depends largely 

 upon the manner in which this work is done. Having cleared 

 away snow and ice, build a rectangular bed one foot larger 

 each way than the frame to be used, carefully shaking out 

 and spreading each forkful and repeatedly treading down the 

 manure so as to make the bed as uniform "as possible in solid- 

 ity, composition and moisture. It is of the utmost impor- 

 tance that this shaking apart and evenly pressing down of 

 the manure should be carefully and thoroughly done: unless 

 it is, one portion will heat quicker than the other and the 

 soil will settle unevenly, making it impossible to raise good 

 plants. The proper depth of the bed will vary with the cli- 

 mate, season and the kind of plants to be raised. A shallow 

 bed will quickly give a high temperature which will soon 

 subside; a deeper one, if well made, will heat more moder- 

 ately, but continue much longer. For general purposes, a 

 bed about two feet deep will be best. 



The bed completed, the frame and sash may be put on 

 and fresh manure carefully packed around the outside to 

 the very top (if the weather is at all severe, this outside 

 banking should be replenished as it settles). The bed should 

 then be allowed to. stand with the sash partially open for a 

 day or two to allow the steam and rank heat to pass off. 

 The earth should then be evenly distributed over the surface 

 of the bed and carefully leveled. The earth should not be 

 shoveled or dumped in one or more places in the bed and 

 then leveled; if this is done uneven settling of the bed in- 

 variably results. Care should be taken that the soil is dry 

 and friable. If wet or frozen soil must be used, it should be 

 placed in small piles until well dried out before spreading. 

 The heat at first will be quite violent, frequently rising to 



120 degrees, but it soon subsides and when it recedes to 9D 

 degrees the seed may be planted. The importance of using 

 dry soil and allowing the first rank heat to pass off is very 

 great. Every season thousands of hotbeds fail of good 

 results from these causes and seedsmen are blamed for fail- 

 ure resulting from overheat, or wet, soggy soil. 



»* . r .1 d j The essentials for 



Management or tne riea success are a steady 



uniform degree of heat and moisture: keeping the soil at all 

 times a few degrees warmer than the air and the careful 

 '"hardening off" (by exposure to the air and diminishing the 

 supply of water) of the plants before transplanting into the 

 open air. Simple as these may seem to be, there are many 

 difficulties in the way of securing them, prominent among 

 which is overheating the air under a bright sun. Without 

 experience one would scarcely believe how quickly the tem- 

 perature inside of a well built hotbed will rise tb 90 or 100 

 degrees upon a still, sunny day. even when the temperature 

 outside is far below freezing, or how quickly the tempera- 

 ture will fall to that outside, if upon a windy, cloudy day 

 the sash is left open ever so little. A rush of cold air drivers 

 over the plants is far more injurious than the same tempera- 

 ture when the air is still. Again, in cloudy weather, a bed 

 will go several days without watering, but will dry up in an 

 hour when open on a sunny day. The details of manage- 

 ment, however, must be learned by experience, but may be 

 easily acquired by one who gives the matter careful atten- 

 tion, keeping constantly in mind the essentials givenabove. 



A« 1 i p is a simple construction of boards 



V/Ola frame for wintering over young plants. 

 Cabbage, Lettuce, Cauliflower, etc., and is also useful to 

 protect and harden off plants from the greenhouse or hot- 

 bed before fully exposing them in the open air. 



Select a dry, southern exposure, form a frame from four 

 to six feet wide and as long as required. The back should! 

 be fourteen to eighteen inches high and the front eight to 

 twelve, with a cross-tie every three feet. The frame may 

 be covered with sash or cloth. Seeds of the vegetables to 

 be wintered, sown in open border early in September, wilS 

 be ready to plant in cold frames about the last of October. 

 The soil should be well prepared and smoothly raked before 

 planting. Admit air freely on pleasant days, but keep close 

 in severe weather. 



These frames are particularly useful in the south and 

 may be covered more cheaply with cloth shades than by 

 sash. The shades are made as follows : Make light but 

 strong wooden frames to fit over the bed and of a width to 

 receive some common brand of cotton cloth. The clotb 

 may be unbleached and should be stretched over and 

 securely tacked to the frames. We have found that Plant 

 Bed Cloth, which we have for sale, is superior to any ordi* 

 nary cloth for this purpose. 



rp | . In transplanting, the main points to 



1 ransplantmg be regarded are : care in taking up 

 the plants so as to avoid injury to the roots, setting out as 

 soon as possible to prevent the air coming in contact with the 

 roots, setting firmly so as to enable the plant to take a secure 

 hold of the soil and shading to prevent the hot sun from 

 withering and blighting the leaves. Where a rank or soft 

 growth of tops has been made in hotbed it is frequently 

 desirable to trim off some of the larger leaves before taking 

 up to transplant so that evaporation later may be retarded. 

 In transplanting from a hotbed, harden the plants by let- 

 ting them get quite dry a day or two before, but give an 

 abundance of water a few hours before they are taken out. 

 It is most apt to be successful if done just at evening, or 

 immediately before or during the first part of a rain, about 

 the worst time being just after a rain, when the ground 

 being wet it is impossible to sufficiently press it about the 

 plant without its baking hard. If water is used at all it 

 should be used freely and the wet surface immediately 

 covered with dry soil. 



1XT m. * Tne best time to water plants is early in the 



Watering morning or in the evening. Water may be 

 given to the roots at any time, but should never be sprinkled 

 over the leaves while they are exposed to bright sunshine. 

 If watering a plant has been commenced, continue to supply 

 it as it is needed, or more injury than good will result from 

 what has been given. One copious watering is better than 

 many scanty sprinklings. The ground should always be 

 stirred with a hoe or rake before it becomes so very dry as 

 to cake or crack. 



