OF ORNAMENTAL ANNUALS. 
35 
front one foot. The hot-bed may be formed in an open situation, on a surface raised six inches above the general 
level; and it should be three or four inches wider on every side than the box that is to be placed on it. The cart¬ 
load of manure, which has been fermented and prepared for making up this hot-bed, should now be regularly 
spread over the base of the intended bed, and raised by successive layers to such a height as the quantity of manure 
will admit. If, in building the bed by these successive layers of manure, cinder siftings, and the animal and 
vegetable refuse of the kitchen, are mixed along with it, the heat will be the less violent at first, but it will 
be retained for a much greater length of time ; and if a part of the contents of a cess-pool of the water-closets of 
the house could be added to the ashes and vegetable refuse, the heat would probably be maintained during the 
whole summer; and a good crop of melons might be obtained after the seedling annuals were removed. 
The time for making a hot-bed for raising seedling annuals need not be earlier than the middle of March, 
since the plants which are raised in it cannot in general be turned out into the open air sooner than the middle of 
May. As soon as the manure is formed into a bed, and the upper surface rendered quite level, the frame and the 
sash should be set on it. In two days the disturbed fermentation will have recommenced, and a steam will be 
observed under the glass. The surface of the bed may now be covered three or four inches deep with any light 
garden soil, and the different kinds of seeds may be sown in pots and placed on its surface ; or if there should not 
be much heat, or likely not to be much, the pots may be sunk into the manure. In other cases, where it is not 
thought necessary to sow the different kinds in pots, the covering of soil may be six or eight inches deep, and the 
seeds may be sown on it, in little square or round patches. This indeed is the common practice. 
In such a hot-bed as we have described, formed of only one load of stable manure, there is very little danger 
of over-heating the soil ; but it may be proper to observe, that neither the temperature of the soil, nor the atmo¬ 
sphere over it, should ever much exceed 60 degrees. It may fall as low as 48 degrees, or even 40 degrees, without 
the slightest injury to the plants ; and it may be raised as high as 80 degrees, or even 90 degrees, without killing 
them; but any degree above 60 degrees is decidedly injurious, by increasing the rapidity of the growth of the 
plants, and rendering them weak and sickly, and unfit to be turned out into the open ground. 
When the plants have come up, and shown two or three leaves, in addition to the cotyledons or seed-leaves, 
they require to be transplanted ; and this may either be done into small pots, or into a bed of earth, placed on a 
hot-bed, formed in the same manner as the first, but with a smaller quantity of material, as much less heat is 
required. For a small garden, however, a second hot-bed is unnecessary ; and all the transplanting and other 
processes preparatory to removal to the open ground, may be carried on in one hot-bed ; care being taken to inure 
the plants to the open air by degrees, by tilting the sash up behind at all times, night and day; and after the 
plants are up, removing it altogether, during fine days. The great object to be kept in view, is to make the plants 
as strong and vigorous as possible before turning them into the open ground, and to give them air, or to thin and 
transplant them whenever they show symptoms of becoming weak or drawn up. 
The above directions for making a hot-bed, will not apply to tan or dead leaves, as these substances are not 
sufficiently compact to allow of their being built up into a regular bed. When they are used, a kind of box must 
be formed of bricks, boards, layers of turf, or stiff earth, and the tan or leaves filled in so as to make a bed. All the 
rest is exactly the same. Where neatness is a paramount object, the hot-bed of stable manure may be thatched 
with straw, so as to make the outside perfectly neat and clean ; or the outside may be covered with bass mats, 
pegged down to keep them close. A hot-bed for tender annuals, will never want what are called linings ; 
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