178 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 21, 1858. 
them from 65° to 70° at night, and 10’ more from sunshine, 
with fresh air as much as they will stand, and which will 
not lower the temperature injudiciously. As the plants 
grow, give them larger pots. It will then he necessary, 
perhaps, to lower the bed inside, in order to give room, to 
the Cucumbers especially. But the requisite healthy tem¬ 
perature may easily he maintained, by banting up the 
outside of the frame, above the eighteen inch, or wider 
margin, with hot dung,.or hot tan, and with a thatching 
of litter, to keep the heat in, and the wet out. 
Now, to make doubly sure, we will have two strings 
to our bow,—say, half of the stove, if at all convenient, 
for two other plants of Cucumbers, and ditto of Melons. 
The plants intended for the stove we should treat dif¬ 
ferently from those intended for the frame, which would 
be stopped in the usual manner, when the plants had 
made three or four rough leaves. When those intended 
for the stoves were stopped, I would only allow one shoot 
afterwards to grow, picking out the incipient buds of 
others as fast as they grew. The reason is, that when that 
single shoot, coming from the plant previously stopped, 
was vigorous, and had its point nipped out again, almost 
every lateral shoot left, or allowed to grow, would be 
next to certain to show fruit. This one-light frame would 
enable you to have sufficient plants for the half of the 
stove, and for the six lights of framing. 
The Cucumbers would grow much the fastest, and, 
therefore, would want shifting oftenest. The hotbed for 
them might, therefore, be first prepared on much the 
same principle as the seed-bed, only it might be from 
three to six inches less in height. As the heat rises 
kindly, place a ridge of rich, sandy loam—such as sandy 
loam and well-aerated leaf mould—along the centre of the 
bed,—say, twenty inches wide, and the same in depth,— 
with slabs, or slates, along the sides, to prevent the roots 
extending farther; and then fill up between these slabs, 
&c., and the back and front of the frame, with sweet, 
heating tan, to the same height as the soil in the centre. 
As soon as the soil gets nice and warm, turn out the strong 
plants into it, two or three in a light ; one would do in 
summer, but for early work I prefer more plants. The 
curbing of the roots will encourage fruitfulness. The 
moving of the tan, at first now and then, will raise a nice 
sweet steam about the plants : there will be little risk of 
too much bottom heat, whilst the layer of tan round the 
soil will secure, with the fermenting material below, quite 
enough until far on in the summer; whilst banking up 
the frame outside with fermenting material and judicious 
covering will secure the necessary amount of top tem¬ 
perature. 
From turning out such plants in the end of February, 
under such management, we have had plenty of fruit by the 
middle of April. The removing of the Cucumber plants 
would give more room to the Melon plants, and they 
might remain in the single-light frame, until they were 
strong plants, in 48 or 32-pots ; and then the other frame, 
being got ready in a similar way, but with two-feet wide 
spaces all round it, the plants might also be turned out 
into a ridge of well-aerated loam. If banking-up and 
covering arc duly attended to, and the frame is about 
two feet in depth at least, to permit of that banking-up, 
Cucumbers and Melons may be got as early in such frames, 
if the spring is clear and open, as in the stove, or fre¬ 
quently sooner; but in dull, cold springs, those having 
the advantage of fire heat will generally come in first. 
If the stove had been heated by hot water, or there was 
the convenience of a bed in it, where a hotbed of tan near 
the glass could be formed, then the plants might be raised 
there at once. Our reason'for making use of the hotbed 
is two-fold:—first, not to interfere with what is in the 
stove at present; and secondly, because, in all our ex¬ 
perience, we have found that such plants grow more 
rapidly and healthily in their young state in such a hot¬ 
bed, than in a place heated merely by a flue. By the end 
of February, or the beginning of March, the sun is so 
much more powerful, that strong healthy plants, turned 
out into such a flue-heated house by the time specified, 
and a fail- amount of moisture kept up in it, would grow 
away freely and healthily. If such a house were appro¬ 
priated to Cucumbers and Melons alone, both coidd be 
gathered from it by the desired time, either by sowing 
in a hotbed, as advised, or making a hotbed of tan in the 
stove. If this were resolved upon, the frames might come 
in for secondary crops, or more Potatoes and Radishes 
in the first place. On the supposition that early crops 
are to be grown in the frames, just to make doubly sure, 
I would devote the warmest end of this stove to two or 
three plants of Melons, and the same number of Cucum¬ 
bers, and would grow them in pots about fifteen inches 
in diameter. 
These pots should be set close to, but not on, the flue, 
and the soil used should be well dried and warmed before 
using. I need not say, that drainage should be well 
attended to, and that, for some days after moving the 
plants here, an extra degree of moisture in the atmo¬ 
sphere should be kept up, that no check might be felt on 
the moving from the moist hotbed. To make this room, 
a few of the hardier plants from the stove might be moved 
into the warmest end of the greenhouse, and a few more 
again, as the Cucumbers, &c., grew freely. If necessary, 
a partition of thin glazed calico might separate the Cu¬ 
cumbers and Melons from the other plants. When the 
frames produced freely, these plants might be removed, or 
the arrangement followed deemed most advisable. 
I do not know the depth of your span-roofed pit, 
heated by a flue ; but, if deep enough to permit in one 
end a bed of two feet of tan, I would propose planting 
the Potatoes over it in the end of February. To make 
sure, we would pot a number of Potatoes in January,— 
say, a middle-sized Handsicorth Early, or Ash-leaved, or 
a larger one cut in two,—into a 60-sized pot, in sandy soil 
and leaf mould, leaving only one shoot to each set. These 
we would place on the ground not far from the flue in 
the greenhouse, or, if we wanted them earlier, on the 
floor of the stove. These would soon fill the pots with 
roots, and by the time the green tops were two or three 
inches in height they would require transplanting. Of 
your'conveniences, the brick pit would be much better 
than the unglazed box; and here they might be trans¬ 
planted into light, sandy soil, at the distance of four 
inches in the row, and eighteen inches from row to row. 
To avoid making a fixture in this pit—if wanted for other 
things—these Potatoes might be transplanted, two or 
three round the sides of a ten or twelve-inch pot, and 
; kept in the pit until they arrived at maturity, or nearly 
so, when they coidd be removed and protected against a 
fence, with a mat, &c. I find this a very profitable way 
of getting Potatoes early ; and if the pots are not very 
large, it is easy to turn them up, pick out the large 
Potatoes, and place the pot on again, without injuring 
the roots, or the small tubers. A stick put in the pot lets 
you know where you have been. Such Potatoes—started 
in pots, and turned out in March, in your frames without 
glass, but protected—would give you ripe Potatoes by 
the middle of May, and onwards ; but if you had cold, 
dull weather, they would be behind in time, and far in¬ 
ferior in flavour to those grown under glass. In both 
cases a slight bottom heat would be in their favour; 
but it must not be very hot, though continuous—say, 
about 65°. 
If you appropriated part of your stove to Cucumbers 
aud Melons, and had no stove plants in particular, you 
might fill the other part with French Beans. You might 
also start Strawberries in your pit and greenhouse, and 
ripen them off in the stove. Plants placed in the warm 
end of your pit, in March, kept close there at first, and 
given plenty of air when in bloom, might be taken to the 
cold end of the stove after the fruit was set, and be 
ripened early in May. Part of that pit might also pro¬ 
duce an early crop of Turnips, which might also be had 
