THE HANDLING OF THE PLANTS 



169 



The hotbed is used for the very early starting of plants; 

 and when the plants have outgrown the bed, or have become 

 too thick, they are transplanted into cooler hotbeds or into 

 coldframes. There are some crops, however, that are car- 

 ried to full maturity in the hotbed itself, as radishes and 

 lettuce. 



The date at which the hotbed may be started with safety 

 depends almost entirely on the means at command of heating 

 it and on the skill of the operator. In the northern states, 

 where outdoor gardening does not begin until the first or the 

 last of May, hotbeds are sometimes started as early as January; 

 but they are ordinarily delayed until early in March. 



The heat for hotbeds is commonly supplied by the fermenta- 

 tion of horse manure. It is important that the manure be as 

 uniform as possible in composition and texture, that it come 

 from highly fed horses, and is practically of the same age. The 

 best results are usually secured with manure from livery 

 stables, from which it can be obtained in large quantities in a 

 short space of time. Perhaps as much as one half of the whole 

 material should be of litter or straw that has been used in the 

 bedding. 



The manure is placed in a long and shallow square-topped pile, 

 not more than four or six feet high, as a rule, and is then allowed 

 to ferment. Better results are generally obtained if the manure 

 is piled under cover. If the weather is cold and fermentation 

 does not start readily, wetting the pile with hot water may 

 start it. The first fermentation is nearly always irregular; 

 that is, it begins unequally in several places in the pile. In order 

 to make the fermentation uniform, the pile must be turned oc- 

 casionally, taking care to break up all hard lumps and to dis- 

 tribute the hot manure throughout the mass. It is sometimes 

 necessary to turn the pile five or six times before it is finally 

 used, although half this number of turnings is ordinarily suffi- 

 cient. When the pile is steaming uniformly throughout, it is 



