FIG. 13—THREE-SASH HOTBED
In some sections, particularly in the South, it is not always easy to procure suitable manure for making hotbeds, so these are built to be warmed by flues under ground, but I think it much better where a fire is to be used that the sash be built into the form of a house. A hotbed of manure is preferred to a house by some because of its supplying uniform and moist bottom heat—and one can easily give abundant air; but the sash can be built into the form of a house at but little more expense, and it has the great advantage of enabling one to work among the plants in any weather, while, if properly built, any desired degree of heat and ventilation can be easily secured. Except when very early ripening fruit is the desideratum, plants started with heat but pricked out and grown in cold-frames without it, but where they can be protected during cold nights and storms, will give better results than those grown to full size for the field in artificial heat.
FIG. 14—CROSS-SECTION OF HOTBED
Cold-frames.—In locations where tomatoes are much grown large areas are devoted to cold-frames covered either by sash or cloth curtains. Sash give much better protection from cold and on this account are more desirable, particularly where very early fruiting is wanted, but their first cost is much greater and the labor of attending to beds covered by them is much more than where cloth is used. Sash-covered beds should be of single width and run east and west, but if the beds are covered with cloth it is better that they be double width (12 feet) and run north and south. The front of the single and the sides of the double width beds should be 8 to 10 inches high, held firmly erect by stakes and perfectly parallel, both horizontally and vertically, with the back or with the central support. This should be 6 inches higher than the front. The cross strips, when sash are used, should be made of a 3-inch horizontal and a 1½-inch vertical strip of 1-inch lumber nailed together very firmly in the form of an inverted T, the vertical pieces projecting 1 inch at each end and resting on the front and back of the bed and forming supports and guides for the sash. Some growers use vertical strips as heavy as 2×3 or 4 inches for stepping across the beds. When the plants are to be taken to the field, the sash and guides can be easily removed. (Fig. 15.)
FIG. 15—COLD-FRAMES ON HILL-SIDE
Ground to be covered with cold-frames should be made very friable and rich by repeated plowing and working in of a liberal dressing of well-rotted stable manure and wood ashes. In southwestern New Jersey, where immense areas of early tomatoes are grown, the soil of the beds for a depth of about 6 inches is removed and a layer 3 to 5 inches deep of well-rotted stable manure is placed in. That made of a mixture of manure from horses, cattle and hogs is preferred. It is important that the manure be so well rotted that it will not heat, and so dry that it will not become pasty when tramped into a firm, level layer. On this they place a layer of nearly 3 inches deep of rich, friable, moderately compact soil and prick out the plants into this. The roots soon bind the manure and soil together and by cutting through the manure so as to form blocks one can carry the plants to the fields with but very little disturbance of the root.
Cloth covers for beds should be made of heavy, unbleached sheeting or light duck, and it is better that the selvage run up and down the bed rather than lengthwise. The cloth is torn into lengths of about 13 feet and then sewn together with a narrow double-stitched flat seam so as to form a sheet 13 feet wide and about 8 inches longer than the bed. The edges are tacked every foot to the strips about 2 inches wide by 7/8 inch thick with beveled outside edges and laid perfectly in line. A second line of strips is then nailed to the first so as to break joints with it and so that the two will form a continuous roller about a foot longer than the bed with the edge of the curtain firmly fastened in its center. The center of the curtain is secured to the central ridge of the bed by strips of lath. When rolled up, the rollers are held in place by loops of rope around their ends and when they are down they are held by similar loops to the notched tent-pins driven into the ground or to wooden buttons fastened to the sides and ends of the frame as shown in Fig. 16.
