<$ata!o§ue of tl?e Joseph Harris 5<?<?d Qompai^y. 
JJoW to Make a fjot-ged. 
It is a matter of surprise that a great many farmers and others who have plenty of horse manure do not have hot 
beds. Certainly no farmer who has a son or daughter with a taste for gardening should be without one. It is little 
labor and it comes at a time when other work is not pressing. Horse manure is best and sheep manure the next best. 
If the horse or sheep manure has been used for bedding pigs it will be all the better. The more grain or bran the horses 
have been fed and the more their liquid excrements are mixed with the dung, the richer it will be and the more readily 
it will ferment. 
The fermentation is now known to be produced by a minute living plant which acts like yeast. If you can get 
some manure that has commenced to ferment, be careful to mix it all through the mass of the manure. The live plant 
or yeast which is growing in this fermenting manure will continue to grow and will spread ail through the heap and 
will produce the desired heat. 
Select the place where the hot-bed is to be. It should have a southern exposure and be sheltered from the winds. 
Draw the manure and make a heap near this place—make the heap about five feet wide and five feet high, building it 
square on the sides and flat on the top. Make it any desired length. We are not now speaking of the hot-bed itself, but 
merely of getting the dung ready to make the hot-bed. Such a heap as we have described will make a good hot-bed the 
length of the heap. 
If the manure is partly frozen and the weather is very cold it will be a good plan to pour on some hot water or put 
in some hot bricks or hot coal ashes. The great point is to start fermentation. The yeast plant we have spoken of will 
not grow in frozen or very cold manure. 
When the manure has once commenced to ferment the battle is won. As soon as the heap is fermenting rapidly 
in the center, make your hot-bed. It is not necessary to have a pit. The hot-bed can be made on the surface of the 
ground. Stake off the ground a foot larger on all sides than the frame or frames you intend to use. Take the manure 
from the fermenting heap alongside and place a forkful at each stake and along the whole outside of the bed. Then fill 
in the whole space with manure, and repeat the process adding layer after layer till you reach the desired height. But 
be very careful to break up any or all lumps that may be in the manure, and especially be careful to distribute the hot 
or fermenting portions (the yeast) evenly through the bed. If the manure is very hot, tread the bed down solid; if it 
has only just started to ferment the less treading the better. In the latter case, as soon as the bed is finished put on the 
frame and sash, but do not put any dirt on top. If the nights are cold cover the sash with mats or bags and place 
manure round the outside of the frame to exclude the cold air and make everything as snug as possible. The object is 
to retain any heat that may be generated by fermentation. The warmer you can keep the bed the more rapidly will the 
manure ferment. If portions of the manure get hot while other parts are still cold and dormant, “ transplant ” some 
of this hot manure into holes made in the cold parts of the bed. They will grow and gradually extend, producing a 
uniform heat all through the manure. When this is the case tread down the bed and even it off and then cover with 
soil about six inches deep. Keep the sash closed and do not sow the seed till the soil is thoroughly warm throughout, 
andthe weed seeds it contains have started to grow. Then take off the sash and hoe and rake the soil thoroughly, 
exposing it to the fresh air, and let all the gases and steam escape. The soil should not be hotter than 80° or 85°. 
Soil for a Mot-Bed.—This is an important matter. But as it should be prepared the summer previous it is not 
necessary to discuss the subject at this time. In the absence of specially prepared soil and with the earth frozen solid, 
you must see what 5 ou can find in out-door cellars or under a straw stack, or beneath a pit of roots that have been 
buried in a sandy spot in the field or garden, or where celery has been kept in trenches, or under the manure that you 
have piled up to ferment for the hot-bed. When you make this fermenting pile of manure into the hot-bed you will 
fin d the soil underneath thawed out and you can dig it up and wheel it into a cellar. Select the dryest and sandiest 
portions. Be sure to get enough of it. liun it through a sieve—the largest you have at first, and as the soil get 3 dryer a 
finer one. If you can find some old, dry, well-rotted manure break it up fine and rub it through a sieve and mix one bushel 
of this sifted manure with three or four bushels of the sifted earth. The object is not merely to make the soil rich, but 
to make it light and porous and capable of holding an extra quantity of water. 
Sowing tlie Seed.—Our own plan is to take a lath and mark off rows with a pencil about an inch apart and 
just deep enough to retain the seed in place. Many prefer to,sow broadcast as it is less work, but ceriainly more labor 
in weeding. Mark the names of the seeds on labels stuck at the beginning of the row. Cover the seed by scattering a 
little fine sifted earth over them-just enough to retain them in their place. Much seed is lost by covering too deep. 
If you have it there is nothing better for covering the seed than dry sifted moss—say from an eighth to a quarter of an 
inch deep. It is especially valuable in preventing the soil from getting hard by constant watering. 
Starting piaqts ip Boxes ip the Hohse. 
Make a box out of half-inch boards about 15 inches wide, four inches deep, and just long enough to rest on the 
window sill. Put a nail or screw on the outside of each end of the box. Put a nail or screw on each side of the window 
about two and a half feet above the sill, and then with some wire or string fasten the boxes in the window. 
The soil prepared for the hot-bed can be used in these boxes. We have had just as good success in starting plants 
in such boxes in the house as in hot-beds. This is especially the case early in the season while the weather is very cold 
outside. A little dry sifted moss scattered on the surface of the soil in the box, a quarter of an inch thick, after the seed 
is sown, or between the plants after they have started, will act as a mulch, and check evaporation—a point of consider¬ 
able importance, especially if tne house is heated with a furnace. The moss has another advantage: you can pour the 
water on the moss on the surface of the box; otherwise a watering can and rose must be used, and in this case it is 
difficult to avoid wetting the floor. 
Such seeds as Asters, Verbenas, Pansies, Balsams, Hollyhocks, Petunias, Stocks, and other flowers, can be raised 
with little trouble in these boxes, and it is an excellent plan to sow Tomatoes, Peppers, Egg Plants, Early Cabbage and 
Cauliflower in boxes in the house, and when convenient transplant them into the hot-bed. A partly spent hot-bed 
covered with glass, or a moderately warm one covered with cotton cloth, can often be used with great advantage 
for plants started in boxes in the house. 
