10 
8 
Glass in tlie Garden. 
HOT-BEDS THE YEAR ROUND—ITEMS OF SUC¬ 
CESSFUL MANAGEMENT. 
Mr. W. H. Bull contributes the follow¬ 
ing sensible article to the New York Tri¬ 
bune. As all plant-beds should be prepared 
in Autumn for early Spring use we con¬ 
sider this not at all unseasonable: 
Hot-beds and cold-frames, with the ac¬ 
companying complement of glass, are a 
necessity for the market-gardener who in¬ 
tends to do anything more than “farm gar¬ 
dening.” Market gardening in the latitude 
north of New-York City cannot exist with¬ 
out these helps. To buy large quantities of 
vegetable plants is expensive, while to 
raise the same quantity is to have your own 
stock, with some to sell as payment for the 
trouble. There is no secret in hot-bed man¬ 
agement; it wants good, well-made sashes, 
two-inch plank to rest them on, and these 
sunk in the ground, to keep the manure 
from losing its heat in cold winter weather. 
I buy sashes 3x6 feet; set with double-thick 
English glass, size 6x8; tacked, puttied and 
bedded in 2-inch pine sash with horns two 
inches long at each corner to carry them 
by, Such sashes I have had in use fifteen 
years, and they will last a life-time with 
good care; they rarely break; dogs and 
cats walk over them, and they sustain the 
weight of heavy snows. Other sizes of 
sashes, or glass, are the index of inexperi¬ 
ence or ignorance. 
Horse manure is the heating material 
used, and one solid foot in depth of this, 
smoking hot from the pile when the bed is 
made, will force plants better than any¬ 
thing else I have tried. The first week of 
February I plant a seed-bed of lettuce. 
Early in March I set the plants out in hot¬ 
beds ; these head up to sell during May. 
Cauliflowers or cucumbers are started for 
a second crop—in places made vacant by 
the sale of lettuce—from plants previously 
raised for that purpose; the cucumbers in 
pots, the cauliflowers in beds prepared for 
them. Cabbage seed is planted about 
March 1, pricked out the last of the month 
in cold-frames, and the cabbage bed plant¬ 
ed to lettuce. Tomatoes are pricked out 
to succeed the early lettuce and cabbage, 
sometimes; and sometimes lettuce, cab¬ 
bage, or tomato follow radish. Radish will 
grow from the seed in six weeks. Celery 
and peppers remain in the hot-beds till 
ready for the field. 
Long radishes need at least eight inches 
of soil over the manure, while the round 
ones will grow in five or six inches, as will 
lettuce. But if large heads of lettuce are 
wanted they must be set fifty plants to the 
sash in the beds, and in earth a foot deep; 
lettuce needs a cool head and warm feet, 
and a deep soil for big heads, while a shal¬ 
low soil, with seventy-five plants to the 
sash, is the rule for the early-forcing small 
head lettuce. The small heads will mature 
quicker, while the big heads will sell better 
later in the season. The tomatoes are 
pricked out into beds, two feet from the 
earth to the glass, to allow the plants to get 
in blossom before time to set in the open 
ground. The glass in the fall can again be 
put to good use by using it to cover the let¬ 
tuce set in the beds, which will mature 
from Thanksgiving to New Years, after 
which time the beds lie idle till February, 
unless used to winter small lettuce or cab¬ 
bage plants for early setting in the spring 
opening of the beds. 
Water is a necessity. Twenty-five sashes 
will in a dry time require a barrel of water 
daily, and often more. My supply comes 
from a tank filled by a hand-pump and 
flows to the beds through a rubber hose by 
the force of gravity, one man can fill the 
tank and then water until it is empty. The 
later the season and the dryer the weather, 
the more water is used, especially if the 
sashes are taken off, which becomes neces¬ 
sary after the middle of May. Then the 
sun and drying winds dry the beds rapidly. 
Cucumbers and cauliflowers then suffer if 
not abundantly watered. To stop watering 
then means to lose all the crop, and all past 
labor; while continual watering may mean 
cucumbers and cauliflowers to sell for less 
than the cost of production. This is a di¬ 
lemma with two horns. Half an ounce of 
either cabbage, lettuce, or tomato seed, 
sowed under one 3x6 glass, will make 1,500 
2,000 and 800 good plants respectively to 
prick out. I sow broadcast; but celery I 
