After the ripening process has been accomplished, it must be packed into the bottom of the hotbed to the depth of two and a half feet. It should be smoothly laid and well tramped into place. Put in the sash, and within a few days the heat will rise to a hundred degrees or over. Lift the sash slightly at one end, and wait until the temperature falls to about eighty-five degrees, then place about six inches of rich, fibrous soil over the top. We manufacture our potting-mould several months before it is required, by taking the old heating material from spent beds and mixing it with an equal amount of soil from sod land and about one-third the quantity of clean, sharp sand. After thorough mixing, it is piled in a large heap and left exposed to the weather until required, or until late in the fall, when it is put into a shed and kept dry to prevent freezing, as potting-mould and covering for fresh hotbeds is often needed in the early spring. Just before using, it is passed through a sieve to remove all lumps. The first year, when there is no old bed to empty, good top-dressing or potting-mould can be made by cutting deep sods, shaking the earth from the roots and mixing it with an equal amount of old, well-rotted cow manure and about one quarter the amount of clean sand. It is imperative to prepare all such things in the fall. The outside of a hotbed should be banked up with rough stable manure and the sash covered at night with mats and shutters in extreme cold weather. Old carpet or bags made of burlap and filled with cut hay will cost nothing except time and answer quite well. We use pads, for which all sorts of old clothes are utilised. Then unbleached sheets large enough to cover the sash, side and ends, and reach well onto the ground, are used. The sheets are given two coats of oil, and so are impervious to rain or snow, and we think better than wooden shutters. Suppose you want to make your first venture with winter salads, the first gathering for Thanksgiving, and from then on until spring. Start one bed the first week in October, sow three rows of lettuce seed five inches apart, sowing three different varieties, Tennis-Ball, Boston Market and Big Boston; two rows of curly cress (peppergrass) the same distance apart, and five days later, two rows of white mustard. Eight or ten days later, prepare a second bed, so that the heat may have risen and decreased to about seventy-five by the time lettuce is large enough to transplant--about three weeks from the sowing of the seed. Set out the seedlings eight inches apart each way in the new bed, and sow radish seed between the rows.