I am not about to lay down rules for persons who can afford to have cucumbers in March. This amounts to something little short of folly in England: in America, it would be something worse. But, Hot-beds, as things of real use, are more necessary in America than in England; because in the former country, the winter will not suffer to exist in the open air many plants, which are wanted to start with the warm sun, and which plants the winter will suffer to exist in the open air in England.



The American Spring bears no resemblance to that of England, which comes on by degrees from the end of February to the beginning of June; while the American Spring cannot be said to be of a fortnight's duration. There is, in fact, no Spring: there is a Winter, a Summer and an Autumn, but no Spring; and none would ever have been thought of, if the word had not come from Europe along with many others equally inapplicable.

This sudden transition from a winter, which not only puts a total stop to, but effaces all traces of, vegetation, to a summer, which, in an instant, creates swarms of insects, or warms them into life, sets the sap in rapid motion, and, in six days, turns a brown rye field into a sheet of the gayest verdure; this sudden transition presents the gardener, or the farmer, with ground well chastened by the frost, smoking with fermentation, and with a sun ready to push forward every plant; but, alas he has no plants!

I know, that there are persons, who do preserve lettuce, cabbage, and other plants, during the winter, and that there are persons, who rear them on Hot-beds in the Spring; but, what I aim at, is, to render the work easy to farmers in particular; not only as the means of supplying their tables, but the stalls of their cattle, and the yards of their sheep and pigs.

In the summer (a cruelly dry one) of 1819, who, within many miles of my house in Long Island, had a loved cabbage, except myself? During June, July and August, I allowed fifteen a day for my own family: I gave ten a day to one neighbor; to others I gave about five hundred, perhaps, first and last; and, the plants were all raised in one single light, four feet by three and a half, on a hot-bed, made on the 19th of March.

The hot-bed had six lights altogether, and was about twenty feet long; but, the part appropriated to these cabbages was only four feet by three and a half.

The plants came out of this bed on the 20th of April and were planted three inches apart on another bed, without glass, but covered at night with a cloth.

On the 20th of May, they were planted out in the open ground; and, on the 17th of June we began to eat them. All these cabbages, Early Dwarfs, Early Yorks, Sugar Loaves, and Battersea, (coming in one sort after the other) amounting to about four thousand in number, stood, when planted out, upon rather less than thirty rods of ground; and the earliest sorts, while we were using them so liberally, were selling in New York market at from 6 to 4 pence a piece.

To preserve, during Winter, such a number of plants, or, indeed, any number, however small, is a work of great difficulty, and is merely chance work after all. Besides, fall sown plants are not so good as spring sown. They become stunted; and they very frequently go off to seed, instead of producing loaves.

However, it is not my business to treat here of cultivation: I am here to speak of the Making and Managing of hot-beds. This must, of course, include a description of the Wood and Glass, when formed into Frames and Lights. But, first of all, I must treat of the making of the bed.