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should afterwards be attended to, as directed for Broccoli and Cauliflower.

The depth of heating materials must be regulated by the season of the year at which the work is commenced, and also to the purposes for which the hotbeds are intended. Beds used for the purpose of raising half-hardy plants, or for procuring seedling-plants late in the spring, may be made in the manner recommended for the common hotbed; but if substantial heat is required to be kept up, the beds must be so contrived as to admit of linings as the heat decreases; and the dung should undergo a regular process of preparation, according to the use it is intended for. Compost heaps should also be provided, in order to furnish suitable mould to the different species of plants; for this purpose, all the old hotbed dung and mould, leaves, tan, turf, sand, and other light manures and decayed. animal dung, should be collected together.

In some cases, when a slight hotbed is recommended for forwarding hardy plants, if it should happen that a seedling Cucumber-bed be at liberty, it may answer every purpose for Radishes, Lettuce, or other hardy plants; or such a bed may be spawned for Mushrooms, if required.

If the forcing be commenced before the coldest of the winter is past, great precaution must be used, lest the plants be injured by cold cutting winds, or destroyed by heat for want of air. To prevent the former accident, warm dung should be placed around the frames, and the sashes covered with mats and boards every night. If full air cannot be admitted in the daytime, the sashes must be slidden down to let off the steam; at the same time mats may be laid over the aperture, to prevent cold air entering to the plants.

If the bottom heat in a bed be too violent, which is sometimes the case, means must be used to decrease it. This is generally effected by making holes in the bed with a stake sharpened at the end, or with a crowbar; and filling the holes with water until the heat is sufficiently reduced. In lining hotbeds, if the heat is reduced in the body of the beds, holes

may be carefully made to admit heat from the fresh linings, so as to enliven the heat of the bed.

A thermometer should always be at hand at the time of forcing, to be used, when necessary, to regulate the heat in the beds; and the water that is used to plants cultivated in frames, should be warmed to the temperature of the air, or according to the heat required for the various kind of plants.

FORCING ASPARAGUS IN HOTBEDS.

As Asparagus is apt to grow weak and slender by extreme bottom heat, it is forced with greater success, and with less trouble, in flued pits in a hot-house, than in dung hotbeds, because the heat from tan is more regular; yet a suitable bed may be formed in a deep hotbed frame, made in the usual way. If dung alone, or a mixture of dung and leaves be used, it should be in a state past heating immoderately before it is made into a bed.

For the purpose of keeping up a regular heat, a lining of hot dung should be applied around the frame, and changed as occasion requires.

If there be a strong heat in a bed, slide down the sashes till it begins to decline. The temperature at night should never be under 50°, and it may rise to 65° without injury; when the buds begin to appear, as much air must be daily admitted as the weather will permit. In two or three days after the beds are planted, the heat will begin to rise, when the beds should have a moderate supply of water, applied from a watering-pot with the rose attached, and repeated every three or four days.

A frame of ordinary size, calculated for three sashes, will hold from three to five hundred plants, according to their age and size; and will, if properly managed, yield a dish every day for about three weeks. On the above estimate, if a constant succession of Asparagus be required, it will be necessary to plant a bed every eighteen or twenty days.

Rhubarb and Sea-Kale may be, and sometimes are, forced in

the same manner as Asparagus; but the most general mode is to excite them where they stand in the open garden, by the application of warm dung, and a shield made of boards four feet high to protect the young plants from the cold winds

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