12 
D. M. FERRY & CO’S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 
?. 9 U P™~?.V ch a condition of soil that the ascending stem can easily penetrate it and the young roots speedily find 
4.1 j J ’ care never to sow fine seeds 
will so bake and crust the 
, _ . . . strong wind will so dry the 
only remedy is to plant again. 
Not only should every weed be removed as soon as it appears, but the crust which 
the roots of the plants had fuliy occupied the ground. A very small garden, well cultivated and cared for, will give lareer 
returns and be in every way more satisfactory than a much larger one poorly prepared and neglected. 6 
How to Build and Manage Hotbeds 
For early vegetables, some provision for starting certain 
plants earlier than can be done in the open air is desirable; 
for this purpose nothing is better than a good hotbed and 
its construction is so simple and the expense so slight that 
every garden should have one. A hotbed proper not only 
protects the plants from the cold, but supplies bottom heat. 
By this term the gardener means that the soil is constantly 
kept several degrees warmer than the air above, that being 
the condition, so far as heat is concerned, which is most 
favorable for rapid and vigorous growth ami gardeners 
usually secure it by making a compact pile of some fer¬ 
menting material and covering it with the earth in which 
the plants are to grow. 
B.0 degrees, but it soon subsides and when it recedes to 90 
degrees the seed may be planted. The importance of using 
dry soil and allowing the first rank heat to pass off is very 
great. Every season thousands of hotbeds fail of good 
results from these causes and seedsmen are blamed for fail¬ 
ure resulting from overheat, or wet, soggy soil. 
Management of the Bed 
The best heating material that 
is easily available is fresh horse 
Heating Material 
manure, containing a liberal quantity of straw bedding. 
Such manure, if thrown into a locse pile, will heat violently 
and unevenly and will soon become cold. What is wanted in 
the hotbed is a steady and moderate but lasting heat. To 
secure this, the manure should be forked over, shaken apart 
and if dry, watered and allowed to stand a few days and 
then be forked over again, piled and allowed to heat a 
second time, the object being to get the whole mass into a 
uniform degree of fermentatiou and as soon as this is 
accomplished it is fit for use. 
The essentials for 
success are a steady- 
uniform degree of heat and moisture; keeping the soil at all 
times a few degrees warmer than the air and the careful 
‘‘hardening off” (by exposure to the air and diminishing the 
supply of water) or the plants before transplanting into the 
open air. Simple as these may seem to be, there are many 
difficulties in the way of securing them, prominent among 
which is overheating the air under a bright sun. Without 
experience one would scarcely believe how quickly the tem¬ 
perature inside of a w ell built hotbed will rise to 90 or 100 
degrees upon a still, sunny day, even when the; temperature 
outside is far below freezing, or how quickly the tempera¬ 
ture will fall to that outside, if upon a windy, cloudy day 
the sash is left open ever so little. A rush of cold air driven 
over the plants is far more injurious than the same tempera¬ 
ture when the air is still. Again, in cloudy weather, a bed 
will go several days without watering, but will dry up in an 
hour when open on a sunny day. The details of manage- 
£ O, , n0 K ar< * eners use sash made especially for hot- ment, however, must be learned by experience, but may be 
Odsii beds and glazed with small lights cut from odds and easily acquired by one who gives the matter careful atten¬ 
tion, keeping constantly in mind the essentials given above 
ends and so furnished at very low rates. Such sash can 
usually be procured in any of our large cities and costs 
much less than if made to order. For garden use, however, 
we much prefer a smaller sash that can be easily handled 
and the use of larger and better glass. We recommend that 
for home gardens the sash be about two and one-half by 
four or five feet aud that the glass be not less than 10x14, 
laid with not more than one quarter inch lap. In giving the 
order to one unaccustomed to the work, it would be well to 
state what they are to be used for, and that they need to be 
made like skylight sash. 
PVamA This may be made of sound one-inch lum- 
1 lie rrame ber, the back twelve to fourteen inches 
high, the front ten to twelve. It should be well fitted to the 
A p i j F is a silT1 P le construction of boards 
V-Ola Frame for wintering over young plants. 
Cabbage, Lettuce, Cauliflower, etc., and is also useful to 
protect and harden oft plants from the greenhouse or hot¬ 
bed before fully exposing them in the open air. 
Select a dry, southern exposure, form a frame from four 
to six feet wide and as long as required. The back should 
be fourteen to eighteen inches high and the front eight to 
twelve, with a cross-tie every three feet. The frame may 
be covered w ith sash or cloth. Seeds of the vegetables to 
be wintered, sown in open border early in September, will 
be ready to plant in cold frames about the last of October. 
. . , The soil should be well prepared and smoothly raked before 
sash so as to leave as little opening as possible and. yet allow' planting. Admit air freely on pleasant days, but keeD close 
the sash to be easily moved up and down, even when the 
frame is quite wet. 
r r , i o This should be light, rich, friable. Any con- 
1 ne JOU siderable amount of clay in it is very objec¬ 
tionable. If possible, it should be unfrozen when put into 
the bed; .for this reason it is much better to prepare it the 
fall before and cover the pile with enough coarse manure 
or straw to keep out the frost. 
IV/falrinrr o J This requires careful attention 
lViaKing me oea as future success depends largely 
upon the manner in which this work is done. Having cleared 
away snow and ice, build a rectangular bed one foot larger 
each way than the frame to be used, carefully shaking out 
and spreading each forkful and repeatedly treading down the 
manure so as to make the bed as uniform as possible in solid¬ 
ity, composition and moisture. It is of the utmost impor¬ 
tance that this shaking apart and evenly pressing down of 
the manure should be carefully and thoroughly done; unless 
it is, one portion will heat quicker than the other and the 
soil will settle unevenly, making it impossible to raise good 
plants. The proper depth of the bed will vary with the cli¬ 
mate, season and the kind of plants to be raised. A shallow 
in severe w’eather. 
These frames are particularly useful in the south and 
mav be covered more cheaply with cloth shades than by 
sash. The shades are made as follows: Make light but 
strong wooden frames to fit over the bed and of a width to 
receive some common brand of cotton cloth. The cloth 
may be unbleached and should be stretched over and 
securely tacked to the frames. We have found that Plant 
Bed Cloth, which we have for sale, is superior to any ordi¬ 
nary cloth for this purpose. 
Ti-anenLntln/r In transplanting, the main points to 
1 rdnspianung be regarded are: care in taking up 
the plants so as to avoid injury to the roots, setting out as 
soon as possible to prevent the air coming in contact with the 
roots, setting firmly so as to enable the plant to take a secure 
hold of the soil and shading to prevent the hot sun from 
withering and blighting the leaves. Where a rank or soft, 
growth of tops has been made in hotbed it is frequently 
desirable to trim off some of the larger leaves before taking 
up to transplant so that evaporation later may be retarded. 
In transplanting from a hotbed, harden the plants by let^ 
ting them get quite dry a day or two before, but give an 
bed will quickly give a high temperature which will soon abundance of water a few hours before they are taken out. 
subside; a deeper one, if well made, will heat more moder- 11 is most apt to be successful if done just at evening, or 
ately, but continue much longer. For general purposes, a immediately before or during the first part of a rain, about, 
bed about two feet deep will be best. the worst time being iust after a rain, when the ground 
The bed completed, the frame and sash may be put on being wet it is impossible to sufficiently press it about the 
and fresh manure carefully packed around the outside to Plant without its baking hard. If water is used at all it 
the very top (if the weather is at all severe, this outside should ^ 
banking should be replenished as it settles). The bed should 
then be allowed to stand with the sash partially open for a 
day or two to allow the steam and rank heat to pass off. 
The earth should then be evenly distributed over the surface 
of the bed and carefully leveled. The earth should not be 
shoveled or dumped in one or more places in the bed and 
then leveled; if this is done uneven settling of the bed in¬ 
variably results. Care should be taken that the soil is dry 
and friable. If wet or frozen soil must be used, it should be 
placed in small piles until well dried out before, spreading. 
The heat at first will be quite violent, frequently, rising to 
be used freely and the wet surface immediately 
covered with dry soil. 
ur . ; The best time to water plants is early in the 
V "Bering morning or in the evening. Water may be 
given to the roots at any time, but should never be sprinkled 
over the leaves while they are exposed to bright sunshine. 
If watering a plant has been commenced, continue to supply 
it as it is needed, or more injury than good will result from 
what has been given. One copious watering is better than 
many scanty sprinklings. The ground should always be 
stirred with a hoe or rake before it becomes so very dry as 
to cake or crack. 
