8 



M. FERRY& CO., DETROIT, MICH 



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 loet. 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. 



liiHIrimic r'llllivAf inn -^^^ '^^^ should every weed be removed as soon as it appears, but the crust which forms 

 JUUICIUUd v»Ul II vaiiwii after a i-ain should be broken up and the ground stirred as soon as it is dry enough fo per- 

 mit 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. We have seen 

 hundreds of acres of vegetables where the yield and quahty have been materially 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 

 f or, 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 



, \i 



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 vigoi-ous growth, and gardeners 

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

 menting material and covering it with the eai'th in which 

 the plants are to grow. 



Hoafine< Malarial The best heating material that is 

 llC^dllll^ n\aiK,H<lt easily available is fresh horse ma- 

 nure, 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 naoderate 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. 



C^^L| Some gardeners use sash made especially for hot- 

 oaMI 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. 



TUp Fr;imi> '^^^^ maybe made of sound'one-inch lum- 

 I HIS 1 lalllc ijei-^ tiie 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. 



TU|> Ci^jl This should be light, rich, friable. Any con- 

 I I IC Jul I siderable amount of clay in it is very objection- 

 able. 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. 



M;ikinf^ fh<> R<>fl '^^^^^ requires careful attention, as 

 iflalMII^ II US UtSU 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 v,-ith 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 vjhen it recedes to 90 

 degrees the seed may be planted. The importance of using 

 dry soil and allowing the first rank heat to pass off is vex-y 

 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. 



Management of the Bed '"^ifX'^i'fi^lZl 



form 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 to 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 driven 

 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 given above. 



A CfllH FramP ^^ ^ simple construction of boards for 

 r\ V/Uiu I laiilC wintering over young plants. Cabbage, 

 Lettuce, Cauliflower, BrocoU, etc., and is also extremely 

 useful to protect and harden off plants from the greenhouse 

 or hotbed 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, will 

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

 The soil should be well prepared and smoothly reiked 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 

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

 strong wooden frames to fit over the bed, and of a v\ idth to 

 receive some common brand of cotton cloth. The cloth 

 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. 



Tr;incnl;inf inc/ ^^ transplanting, the main points to be 

 1 1 aild|Jiailllli^ 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 fi'equently 

 desirable to trim olT 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 feiv 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. 



W;»forlntf '^^^ he^t time to water plants is early in the 

 VTalcllli^ 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. 



