Dec] the HOT-HOUSE. 593 
best effected at this season, by sliding open a few of the roof -lights, 
if it can be done with convenience. 
Pick off such decayed leaves as you perceive on the various 
plants, keep them free from insects and tilth of every kind, and the 
whole house as sweet and clean as possible. 
Sprinkle your flues and walks occasionally with water to raise a 
comforting steam of moisture in the house; especially when you 
are obliged to burn fires constantly night and day. This will pre- 
serve the plants from the bad effects produced by the parching 
influence of a constant fire-heat, and also tend to prevent an 
increase of insects. 
You may, towards the latter end of this month, introduce into 
the hot-house pots of strawberries and flowering plants of various 
kinds; sow cucumber seed and plant kidney-beans as directed in 
January, in order to force them into early perfection. Pots or tubs 
of bearing grape-vines may also be now introduced for early fruit- 
ing if there are none trained in from the outside. Such vines as 
are planted in front of the house, and trained in under the lights, 
should have the parts of their stems, which are exposed to the 
weather, well wrapped around with hay or straw neatly tied on, 
also their roots covered sufficiently with long litter; for their juices 
being put into full circulation by the forcing heat, renders the 
exposed parts much more vulnerable to frost than if the entire 
plants stood inactive in the open air. 
Having now gone through the work of the several months, and 
endeavoured to adapt the whole to the seasons and local situations 
of the different parts of the Union, to explain and simplify the 
various operations, and to render the work of as much general 
utility as possible, it is offered to the public as the result of many 
years' experience, solely devoted to horticultural and botanical 
pursuits, without presuming to say that it is either infallible or 
incapable of improvement. 
4C 
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