Feb.] the kitchen garden. HQ 
sharp air before it reaches the plants, and yet there will be a due 
proportion admitted without exposing them directly to it, and there 
will also be full liberty to let the steam pass off'. 
Likewise, in covering the glasses on nights with mats, if there 
be a strong heat and great steam in the bed, let the lights be raised 
a little behind when you cover up: let them remain so all night, 
and use the mats as above mentioned, to hang down low before the 
place where the glasses are raised, but this must be done with cau- 
tion in very severe frost. 
One great article to be attended to now. is to support a constant 
temperate heat in the hot-bed, so as to keep the plants in a regular 
growing state. The first thing to be observed towards this is, that 
in six or eight days after ridging out the plants, provided the heat 
of the bed is become moderate, it will be very proper to give some 
outward protection of dry, long litter, waste hay, fern, straw, leaves 
of trees, &c., laying it close around the sides a foot thick, and as 
high as five or six inches up the sides of the frame; but this will 
be particularly serviceable in very wet weather, but more especial- 
ly in driving cold rains or snow, and also if there be cold piercing 
winds, all of which would chill the bed, and, without the above pre- 
caution, would sometimes occasion such a sudden and great decay of 
the heat as to prove the manifest destruction of the plants; whereas 
the above lining will defend the bed, and preserve a fine heat till 
the dung begins naturally to decline or decay of itself, which is 
generally in about three weeks or a month after the bed is made, 
when the warmth of it must be renewed by adding a lining of fresh 
hot dung close to its sides and ends. 
But for the first week or ten days after the plants are ridged out 
into this hot-bed, mind that their roots have not too much heat; for 
it sometimes happens that a bed after the mould and plants are in, 
(the earth confining the heat and steam below in the dung,) will 
begin afresh to heat so violently as to be in danger of burning the 
earth at the bottom of the hills; and without some precaution is 
taken, the burning will soon reach the roots of the plants; there- 
fore, for the first week or ten days, let the bottom of these hills be 
at times examined, by drawing away a little of the earth below; 
and, if any burning appears, remove the burnt earth, replace it with 
new, and by drawing some away quite around, let the hills be kept 
as narrow as they will just stand, so as to support the plants, and 
let them remain till the danger of burning is over, when you may 
replace it again. 
When the great heat abates, or the roots of the plants begin to 
appear through the sides of the hills, then add some fresh, light, 
rich earth all around them; about three days after you may lay 
some more; and in two or three days after that you may earth the 
bed all over to the full thickness. But before you lay the fresh 
earth to the sides of the hills, let it be first laid a few hours, or for 
one night in the frame, up towards the sides, that it may acquire 
an equal degree of warmth with that in the bed; then, being applied 
as above, it will not be in danger of chilling the roots of the plants. 
The next particular care is that of lining the hot-bed when the 
