As soon as the bed is finished the frame should be set on it. The frame consists of a box without a bottom, and with a movable top, formed of a glazed sash or sashes. A frame for a bed of the size I have mentioned will only require one sash, or light as the gardeners call it; and it should be three feet wide and four feet long, so that the bed may be half a foot larger than the frame on every side. The back of the box may be two feet high, and the front one foot, so that the glass may slope from the back to the front. About two days after the bed is made, the fermentation will recommence, and a steam will be observable on the glass. The surface of the bed should now be covered two or three inches thick with light garden mould, and any common seeds may be sown in this. It is more general, however, to sow the seeds in pots, and then either to set them on the surface of the bed, or to plunge them into it up to the rim. No bed for raising annuals should ever be hotter than 60°, and when it exceeds this heat the glasses should be left open so as to cool it. The thermometer for ascertaining the heat should be put on the surface of the bed, with the glass shut above it; and it should be examined in this situation, as it will fall a degree or two immediately on being taken into the open air, if the weather should be very cold. You will, of course, have your hotbed made in the reserve-ground; and, as the one I have given directions for will be a very small one, you will probably find it necessary to have one much larger for your cuttings, or to have three or four small ones. I should advise the latter course, as small hotbeds are much more easily managed by inexperienced gardeners than large ones. A hotbed of two or three lights will require two or three cart-loads of manure, and will, of course, produce a great deal of heat from the immense mass of fermenting materials it contains; and, as you would find this additional quantity of heat very difficult to regulate, you might chance, some fine morning, when you visited your plants, to see them turned black, with their leaves shrivelled up, or, as the gardeners term it, burnt, from the too great heat of the bed. There is also danger of a hotbed getting too cold instead of being too hot, and, when this is the case, the heat should be renewed by the application of dung linings, that is, a quantity of fresh stable manure, round the outside of the bed; or by having linings of dead leaves piled up round the outside of the bed. If, however, you use your hotbeds only for raising seeds, they will not want any linings; as it will be advantageous for the young seedlings to let the beds gradually become cool as the plants increase in size, so that they may acquire strength and hardiness before they are turned into the open ground.