Theory and Practice, Applied to the Cultivation of the Cucumber in the Winter Season

ication of bottom heat, and no more powerful evidence than this can be desired, to condemn at once the application of a very powerful degree of heat, at the roots of plants.

The importance of bottom heat in the culture of tender plants, being a practical fact established beyond question, another consideration arises as to the best means of producing it, and of regulating its application. Various substances and materials have been submitted to a process of fermentation, and so employed to effect it: stable manure, tanner's bark, and the leaves of trees, are among the principal of these materials, and either of them will supply just what the plants require, as truly as these wants can be supplied by any other means; but from their very nature, they are violent, and fluctuating, and ephemeral in their action, and setting aside the labour which the employment of them necessarily involves, we have in these particulars, the special points in which the tank system of applying bottom heat far excels t