taken from the author's _Home Vegetable Gardening_.

For the ordinary garden, all the plants needed may be started
successfully in hotbeds and coldframes. The person who has had no
experience with these has usually an exaggerated idea of their cost and
of the skill required to manage them. The skill is not as much a matter
of expert knowledge as of careful regular care, daily. Only a few
minutes a day, but every day. The cost need be but little, especially if
one is a bit handy with tools. The sash which serves for the cover, and
is removable, is the important part of the structure. Sash may be had,
ready glazed and painted, at from $2.50 to $3.50 each, and with care
they will last ten or even twenty years, so you can see at once that not
a very big increase in the yield of your garden will be required to pay
interest on the investment. Or you can buy the sash unglazed, at a
proportionately lower price, and put the glass in yourself, if you
prefer to spend a little more time and less money. However, if you are
not familiar with the work, and want only a few sash, I would advise
purchasing the finished article. In size they are three feet by six.

Frames upon which to put the sash covering may also be bought complete,
but here there is a chance to save money by constructing your own
frames--the materials required being 2 x 4 inch lumber for posts, and
inch-boards; or better, if you can easily procure them, plank 2 x 12
inches.

So far as these materials go the hotbed and coldframe are alike. The
difference is that while the coldframe depends for its warmth upon
catching and holding the heat of the sun's rays, the hotbed is
artificially heated by fermenting manure, or in rare instances, by hot
water or steam pipes.

In constructing the hotbed there are two methods used; either placing
the frames on top of the manure heap or by putting the manure within the
frames. The first method has the advantage of permitting the hotbed to
be made upon frozen ground, when required in the spring. The latter,
which is the better, must be built before the ground freezes, but is
more economical of manure. The manure in either case should be that of
grain-fed horses, and if a small amount of straw bedding, or leaves--not
more, however, than one-third of the latter--be mixed among it, so much
the better. Get this manure several days ahead of the time wanted for
use and prepare by stacking in a compact, tramped down heap. Turn it
over af