Melons, fyc. By the Rev. William Phelps. 355 



my pit, and fixed at the end of it a boiler holding forty gal- 

 lons of water, which was securely enclosed, with the excep- 

 tion of a small aperture, six inches by nine, made to admit the 

 steam into the steam chamber, which encompassed the sides 

 as well as the bottom of the bed. At first, I left an aperture 

 at the opposite extremity of the pit, through which the air 

 escaped when the steam was admitted into the chamber, but 

 this I found unnecessary, and consequently closed it up, and, 

 instead, I used a small metal pipe one inch and a half in dia- 

 meter, which communicates, with the steam chamber below, 

 and opens into the bed above. In the pipe is a throttle 

 valve, which admits the steam amongst the plants in the 

 upper space, when required. The bed was filled with rich 

 mould, and has succeeded far beyond my fullest expectations. 



On the 23rd of February, 1821, the work was comple- 

 ted, and after allowing a week or ten days for the mortar 

 to become hardened, the boiler was filled and the fire ap- 

 plied ; in about four days the earth in the bed was warmed 

 to its proper temperature, and so continued through the 

 season. On the 10th of March I sowed the seed, the plants 

 soon came up, and made most vigorous shoots ; on the 30th 

 of April I cut my first Cucumber, continuing to cut regularly 

 through the season : and at the time when my neighbours 

 could scarcely keep their beds in a growing state, my plants 

 produced their fruit regularly, and from one bed, four and 

 a half feet broad by ten feet long, I cut upwards of an hundred 

 brace of the finest Cucumbers, thus affording the best proof 

 of the superior advantage of the use of steam in forcing. 



I also added a flue of pottery-ware pipes, six inches in 

 diameter, running the whole length of the back of the pit, 



