354 Description of a V\t,for raising Cucumbers, 



of linings, a proper temperature in the months of February and 

 March, when cutting winds and heavy rains prevail. These 

 are difficulties well known to every practical gardener, and it 

 is desirable to obviate their inconvenience. 



A pit formed upon the plan now recommended, promises a 

 remedy, as the effect of cutting winds and of rain are guar- 

 ded against by their almost total exclusion, whilst a proper 

 temperature is likewise secured. 



Having practically attended to gardening for many years, 

 and having experienced great inconvenience from the want of 

 a sufficient quantity of hot stable dung, for lining my beds, I 

 was induced to consider whether any plan could be devised 

 to answer the purpose of forcing without it : and on atten- 

 tively examining my bed, which was altered a few years 

 since into a pit,* inclosed on all sides by a wall built chequer- 

 wise, with spaces of three inches between the bricks, to allow 

 the circulation of the hot vapour which was raised by bank- 

 ing the bed all round with hot dung, I found this plan was 

 still liable, as in a common bed, to a constant change of tem- 

 perature from the diminution of heat caused by heavy rains 

 and cold winds. It then occurred to me, as there was no 

 efficacy in the vapour, more than as the medium of raising a 

 moist heat, and as this vapour, if admitted into the bed, was 

 extremely prejudicial to the plants, that steam supplied from 

 a boiler fixed at the end of the pit would answer the purpose, 

 and give a moist heat more uniformly and regularly at all times, 

 than could be possibly obtained from fermenting stable 

 dung. 



I therefore closed up the interstices in the outward wall of 



* Similar to Macphail's pit. 



