THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. SI 
and on the selected site the manure is spread and piled ; hut it 
should extend a full yard every way beyond the frames, and be 
well divided and broken by the fork in the process, and be 
again sprinkled if need be ; but if you make it pasty wet your 
work will all go wrong. When spread and piled in a flat 
oblong mass, we put on the frames, treading on the manure as 
little as possible, and leave the affair for a day or two. Then 
we put into the frames the soil for the hillocks, and if the heat 
rises nicely and not fiercely, we put out the plants, and we 
regulate the ventilation and the watering, and, indeed, all the 
management, by the fermentation. If that rages vehemently, 
we must leave the lights tilted day and night until a sweet 
heat prevails; but if the heat rises slowly, we must shut up 
and be patient and hope for the best. It will soon be dis- 
covered, but it may as well be notified in advance, that what- 
ever tends to compress the manure, such as treading on it, 
putting soil on it, and so forth, promotes the activity, and at 
the same time shortens the life of the fermentation. It is 
good practice to have a large body of stuff and let it settle 
down in its own way, with the least compression possible con- 
sistent with the work that must be done. We have grown as 
fine melons as were ever seen or tasted with the aid of grass- 
mowings and waste straw, fern, and other dry litter only, 
without a particle of stable manure. This will show the 
importance of mastering the hotbed business, for it is our 
cheapest mode of creating an artificial climate, and one more- 
over that answers admirably for such leafy plants as melons 
and cucumber, because of the great advantage to them of an 
atmosphere impregnated with ammoniacal vapours. 
Pits and Frames are of immense service for the preservation 
during the winter of . cauliflower plants, endives, lettuces, and 
sweet herbs ; for raising in spring saladings, new potatoes, 
and brassicas for planting out ; for the growth by the aid of 
sun heat only of melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, capsicums, and 
aubergines in summer; for growing mushrooms and raising 
seeds of many kinds in the autumn. A frame ground is one 
of the most important adjuncts to the kitchen garden. We 
want much more than the climate will give us to make life 
bearable, and a bit of glass is a grand help towards a winter 
salad and an early summer cauliflower. There is nothing like 
good brick pits for the solid work, and well-made frames for 
moving about. Beware of having either too large for con- 
