4 
Catalogue of tl?e Joseph ffarris 5?^ Qompapy. 
Gotten Glotl] for Hot-ged S as ^> 
We cannot get along without glass sashes, but as a matter of experience, we find that if you have say a dozen glass 
sashes, you can double the number of your hot-beds by having a dozen sashes covered with cotton cloth. The cloth- 
covered sashes should be exactly the same size as the glass sashes. If you have some plants that you wish to force along 
rapidly for a few days, put on the glass sashes, and when the plants are fairly started, and especially if they are making 
a too rapid growth, and need considerable ventilation, take off the glass and put on the cotton. 
For instance, you can use glass for Tomatoes, Egg Plants, Peppers, etc., till it is time to begin hardening them off. 
Then, if you have planted Water Melons and Musk Melons on sods in a fresh hot-bed with considerable bottom heat, take 
the glass off the Cabbage or Cauliflower plants, or the Tomatoes, etc., and put the glass sash on the Melons, and the 
cotton sash on the plants that are nearly as large as you wish. The advantage of cotton is not merely its comparative 
cheapness, but it is far less work to take care of a hot-bed covered with cotton than with glass. 
Melops Started op Sods. 
In our short season, there is great advantage in starting Melons on inverted pieces of sod in a hot-bed. Select such 
sod as is suitable for a lawn. It should be tough and well matted together with fine surface roots. Take a bright spade 
and file or grind it sharp. Cut the sod as you would for sodding a lawn, only a little thicker, say, three inches thick* 
Cut it into pieces four inches square. Take off the sash from the hot-bed and throw back about two inches of the warm, 
porous soil from the surface of the hot-bed. Commence on one side of the hot-bed, and place the sods, grass down, com¬ 
pactly and neatly in straight rows in the hot-bed. Place four good Melon seeds on each sod, and cover an inch deep with 
the warm soil from the hot-bed. When all is done, water thoroughly, and put on the glass. Little or no ventilation 
is needed unless the temperature rises to over 90°. Melons will stand a strong heat. If the plants are drawn up too 
much, place a little loose hot-bed soil among them, say half an inch deep. If this soil consists principally of well-rotted, 
dry, sifted manure, all the better. If the plants are growing too rapidly, and are liable to be too large before the soil and 
weather are suited for transplanting out of doors, check them by ventilating, or during the heat of the day, by removing 
the sash entirely, or what is sometimes better than either, by putting on the cloth sashes. 
It is far less work to start Melons in this way than may be supposed from our somewhat prosy description. The 
chief labor is in watering. They need a great deal of water. 
When ready to set them out in the garden, thoroughly saturate the bed with water the evening before, so that it 
will have time to soak down to the roots. Holes may be made between the pieces of sod and the water poured into these 
holes again and again as fast as it disappears. There is no danger of getting on too much water, while it often happens that 
the roots of the Melons are exposed because the soil is too dry. No watering is necessary or desirable after the plants are 
set out. The saturated mellow hot-bed soil and sods should hold water enough to last the plants till they get hold of the 
soil in the garden. 
D° We Lose Afiytbifig by Feripeptipg Maphre. 
In other words, can we use manure for a hot-bed without loss of ammonia or other valuable plant food? This 
question is very satisfactorily answered by an experiment of the late Dr. Yoelcker, chemist to the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England. We all know that fermenting manure sometimes gives off a little ammonia; but it should be 
remembered that one pound of nitrogen in manure, if converted into ammonia, would produce 44,700 cubic inches of 
pure ammonia gas, and that each inch of gas mixed in the air of a room or barn would be readily detected by a good 
nose. It requires very little ammonia to make a great smell. 
Five tons of good stable manure contains over 60 pounds of nitrogen. Dr. Yoelcker found that five tons of manure 
(10,000 lbs.) placed in a heap in November, and kept out of doors, exposed to rain till April 30, lost less than half a pound 
of nitrogen or ammonia. The following are the results : 
Total weight of Manure.... 
Water.... 
Soluble Organic Matter. 
Soluble Mineral Matter. 
Total Organic Matter. 
Total Nitrogen, in heap .... 
Nitrogen in Soluble Matter 
When put in heap Nov. 3. 
10,000 lbs. 
6,617 “ 
248 “ 
154 “ 
2,824 “ 
64.3 “ 
14.9 “ 
Same heap April 30. 
7,138 lbs. 
4,707 “ 
305 “ 
207 “ 
1,678 “ 
63.9“ 
21.4“ 
The heap lost by fermentation nearly one ton of water, and 1126 lbs. of dry organic matter that was slowly burnt 
up in the heap, and which would give out about as much heat as half a ton of coal burnt in a stove. This organic matter 
has no manurial value. There was practically no loss of plant-food. On the other hand, the heap of fermented manure 
is of more value than the raw manure from which it is produced, because the nitrogen and mineral matter are more 
soluble and more readily available for plants. There is, therefore, no loss in making a hot-bed. 
It is true, that if the old hot-bed is left exposed all summer, and we should have rains enough to wash out the 
soluble plant-food, there would be that amount of loss ; but even in that case the ground gets it. In keeping manure 
there is not necessarily any practical loss from the escape of gases t but there is often considerable loss from leaching. 
It is rare indeed, however,,that we have rain enough to saturate a hot-bed, except at the front side which catches the 
rain water that runs off the sashes. 
