89 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 13, 1860. 
grown in the open ground, with a hand-light or large glass over 
them when planted, would he accelerated ; grown in a frame or 
pit above a bed of sweet, fermenting dung, &c., they would be 
forced. A Vine or a Peach tree, growing in a house roofed with 
glass, and no heat applied except what the sun gives, would be 
accelerated or retarded. A similar house, with a hot-air flue or 
hot-water pipes running through it, would be a forcing-house. 
FERMENTING- MATERIAL. 
For forcing this is generally the most easily accessible to the 
possessors of small gardens, and with that the first attempts are 
generally made to steal an advance on oup natural climate. 
Everything of a vegetab’e or animal matter that, when thrown 
into a heap, will produce heat during the process of decomposition, 
is valuable for this purpose. The great thing, and especially 
when the material is not superabundant, is to use that heat so as 
to be healthy to vegetation, and with as little waste as may be of 
the material furnishing the heat. The whole process would be 
simplified did we look on such a fermenting heap just as we 
would do on a pile of fuel from the combustion of which we want 
a certain amount of regular, continuous warmth. In both cases 
air, or its oxygen, is necessary to the slow combustion of the 
fuel and the continued decomposition of the fermenting heap. 
Shut out air, and the heat will languish and expire. Give too 
much air to the furnace, and the fire will speedily be burnt out. 
Give too much air to the fermenting heap, and heat will be 
arrested, because decomposition will be stayed. The necessity of 
a certain amount of moisture to insure decomposition of fer¬ 
menting matter is the chief difference between the two cases, 
though even some sorts of fuel burn best when wet after the fire 
has fairly been set a-going. So long as the fermenting material 
is kept dry, it decomposes too slowly to produce available heat. 
If thoroughly soaked the result is the same—it becomes so far 
shut out from air. A load of Wheat straw in a good barn might 
lie there for years. Placed in small bundles under water it 
Avould gradually rot, but the heat given off would be trifling. 
Untie the bundles and pile all in a regular heap, wetting the 
straw regularly as you proceed, and you will soon have a -warm 
heap of decomposing material. Add horse-droppings, short 
grass, &c., or other matters possessing a fair supply of nitrogen, 
and the heating process will be effected all the sooner, but you 
will have to wait longer before it is sweetened. The decomposing 
process also will be slow or quick, according as the air is dry and 
cold, or moist and warm. Other circumstances being equal, 
bodies having the greatest amount of nitrogen will yield the most 
heat when decomposing, but the heat is not so regular and lasting 
as from bodies consisting chiefly of carbonaceous matter; and 
besides, you must wait longer before they are sweetened, and the 
steams and gases noxious to vegetation, such as sulphuretted 
hydrogen, are given off. Such violent-heating bodies, besides, are 
apt to become too close, and the air is prevented entering to keep 
up a slow decomposition: and therefore, when nothing else can 
be got, the prunings of hedges, faggots of twigs, and even stems 
of Dahlias and Hollyhocks, are useful when put in in layers to 
prevent that extra closeness. 
Horse-dung. —The most generally come-at-able fermenting 
material is stable manure , &c. When brought from the stable 
dunghill it should, when wanted for forcing, be thrown into a heap, 
the droppings and the straw thoroughly mixed, and what is dry of 
the latter watered from the rose of a watering-pot, and the whole 
beat with the fork, or slightly trod, to prevent the heap being 
too loose and airy. If the weather is at all mild it will heat gently, 
and will want turning in about eight days, placing the centre of 
the heap to the outside, and the outside to the centre, the top 
to the bottom, and the bottom to the top, and just sprinkling 
again all parts that seem dry and white-caked in appearance. 
In a similar time it may require another turning with the same 
precautions, and in some cases a fourth, before using for any¬ 
thing tender. The time wfill much depend on the weather. In 
these turnings, and also when the heap is thrown up at first, a 
sprinkling of long litter four or six inches thick will cause the 
heap to ferment more regularly ; and at every turning the litter 
should be laid aside, ready for use all over the heap again. In 
turning, the whole mass should be well shaken with the fork, 
so as to mix thoroughly; and as, from the watering, the mass 
will be heavier and closer, no beating will be required. After 
the last turning the heap must remain until the heated vapours 
escaping from it are found to he sweet instead of noxious. A 
piece of sheet iron, or slate, or a piece of glass suspended above 
the heap, will furnish you with a good test. If the drops of 
moisture condensed on the lower side next the heap have a 
dirty yellow appearance, the dung is yet too rank, too much 
of noxious gas is produced, to trust any growing tender plant 
in it; if the drops are clear and bright as the dew, you may 
consider your dung sweet enough for anything. Even after 
making such dung into a bed for a frame or a pit, it is well to 
watch these symptoms before trusting plants in it. With such 
material we should consider a bed made from 12 inches to 
18 inches deep, a slight hotbed ; if from 15 inches to 24 inches, 
a mild hotbed ; and if from 24 inches to 40 inches and more, a 
regular hotbed, fit for tropical plants, &c. 
Such a mode of preparing duDg for a hotbed will hardly 
fail to give satisfaction, unless from two causes—the first, the 
liability of the bed to become too close, and thus arrest the 
process of decomposition, which can be averted by twig faggots, 
&c., as already referred to. The other cause is the next to im¬ 
possibility in small places—say with a horse and cow, to get a 
sufficiency of dung thus nicely sweetened to make a bed for early 
Cucumbers and Melons,—say three or four fights in length, or 
from 12 feet to 16 feet long by 6 feet or 7 feet in width. In 
such a case proceed as follows:—A month or five weeks be¬ 
fore you intend building your bed collect the most of your 
dung, and throw it into a heap and treat it exactly as described 
above. A fortnight after get another heap collected, and give 
that one turning; ten days after that get another heap, and 
have that ready for the first turning. Then, when the first heap 
is sweet, place the third heap for the bottom of your bed, 
shaking it nicely and regularly, and beating it down with the 
back of the fork. On this place the second heap, and shake, 
mingle, and beat still more carefully ; and, last of all, place the 
first-made sweet heap on the top. Any noxious steam, rising 
from the lower layers, will be absorbed and sweetened in its 
progress through the upper layer into the atmosphere of the 
house and bed. From a scarcity of material I have often 
adopted this plan, and generally with as much success as when 
all the dung was thoroughly sweetened. 
Leaves of Trees, collected in autumn and winter, are most 
useful fermenting substances. Raked up along with sweepings 
of grass, &c., and thrown into a heap, they will generally be 
sweet enough in a fortnight. Raked up by themselves and 
placed dampish in a heap, they may be used in a week if the 
weather is mild. If collected dry, and kept in a dry shed, they 
will keep for a twelvemonth or more without heating much, 
and when wanted for heating have only to be moistened. From 
such leaves alone I never met with a heat noxious to vegetation. 
When used alone they do well for slight and mild hotbeds. To 
give not only lasting but greater heat, fermenting dung as pre¬ 
pared above should be added. If the leaves are raked up very 
wet, they may be mixed at once with the dung, and if the latter 
is dryish it will save watering. When the leaves are rather dry 
I prefer adding them from half in quantity or more at the last 
turning, so as not unnecessarily to waste the leaves before trans¬ 
ferring them to the beds. According to the proportion of leave 
with the dung, the bed should be all that deeper than mentioned 
in a preceding paragraph. Were I satisfied with a three-feefc 
dungbed for Cucumbers in March, I should like from six to 
twelve inches more, if the heap was nearly half leaves ; earlier 
in the season I should increase the depth. When leaves were 
plentiful, and dung scarce, I should just work the dung little 
more than recommended for the second sweetened heap, and 
place fifteen inches of hot tree leaves over all. All deciduous 
leaves arc useful, and so are evergreens, so far as giving heat is 
concerned. I prefer, however, Oak as first, and Beech as second. 
The former I have dug out pretty fresh and warm from the 
bottom of a deep Pine-pit after they had been there nearly three 
years. When used dryish a great body of air is enclosed with 
them, which thus insures a slow, gradual decomposition, and a 
long, gentle heat as a consequence. All such deciduous leaves 
when thoroughly, or rather more than half, decayed are invalu¬ 
able for the pot gardener, and for producing the sweetest vege¬ 
tables. Keep in mind that the drier they are housed and kept 
the longer will they be a storehouse of heating to which you may 
resort. If collected wet and damp, whether you want the heat 
or not then, they will be sure to ferment. 
The Spent Tan from a tanner’s yard is a valuable sub¬ 
stance for yielding a sweet heat. The fresher and the drier 
it is obtained the better. If when driven heme the water 
keeps running out of it all the way it will want to be spread 
out, and dried for several days. If when brought home it is 
merely moist, not splashing wet, it may be thrown into a heap at 
