CHAPTER XXVII. 
FORCING. 
“ A cause on foot, 
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring 
W e see the appearing buds ; which to prove fruit, 
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, 
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, 
We first survey the plot, then draw the model ; 
And when we see the figure of the house, 
Then must we rate the cost of the erection : 
Which if we find outweighs ability, 
What do we then, but draw anew the model 
In fewer offices : or, at least, desist.” 
& Henry IV J. 3. 
S HE proper treatment of various vegetables for ensuring 
supplies in advance of the natural season has obtained 
attention incidentally as appeared necessary in the pre- 
paration of the foregoing chapters. It is necessary, however, 
that a brief chapter should be devoted to the subject of 
forcing in general, for the means at our command for 
expediting the growth of plants contribute in a very marked 
degree to the increase of our comfort and in not a few in- 
stances constitute the most important, because most profitable 
business of the garden. 
Two considerations confront us at starting. Glass houses 
and fuel are costly, and all the preliminary arrangements 
should be ordered with a view to the accomplishment of a 
maximum of work with a minimum of expenditure. An 
amateur may easily err in the adoption of contrivances that 
are expensive in the first instance, and a perpetual burden of 
expense to keep them in repair and usefully occupied. The 
very first care should be to do the best with the roughest 
means, say a good brick pit, and a bed of leaves to produce a 
gentle heat costing nothing and resulting finally in production 
of clean leaf mould for the potting shed. The management 
of fermenting materials is a matter of the utmost importance, 
not only becaury, as a rule, they produce a certain degree of 
