ix thoroughly. If the soil is clayey or heavy, add enough coarse sand
and make it fine and friable, or use a larger proportion of the manure.
Leaf-mould, from the woods, will also be good to lighten it with. This
one mixture will do for all your potting. Keep enough of it under
cover, or where it will not freeze, to last you during the winter and
early spring. Store some of it in old barrels, or in boxes under the
greenhouse bench, if there is not a more convenient place. For very
small pots, run it through a half-inch sieve. For the larger sizes,
three inches and up, this will not be necessary--just be sure the
ingredients are well mixed.

Proper temperature is more likely to be the beginner's stumbling block
than any other one thing. Different plants, of course, require different
treatment in this respect; and just as your corn and beans will not come
up if planted too early in the spring, or carrot or pansy seed in the
heat of July, so the temperature in which a coleus will thrive would be
fatal to the success of verbenas or lettuce under glass. It will often
pay, where a variety of things are to be grown in the small greenhouse,
to have a glass partition separating it into two sections, one of which
may be kept, either by additional piping or less ventilation, several
degrees warmer than the other. So, while a general collection of many
plants can be grown successfully in the same temperature, it is foolish
to try everything. Only actual experiment can show the operator just
what he can and cannot do with his small house. Even where no glass
partition is used, there will probably be some variation in temperature
in different parts of the house, and this condition may be turned to
advantage. The beginner, however, is more likely to keep his house too
hot than too cool. He may seem at first to be getting a fine quick
growth, and then wonders why things begin to be lanky, and yellow,
forgetting that his plants can get no air to breathe, except what he is
careful enough to give to them. For the majority of those plants which
the beginner is likely to try--geraniums, petunias, begonias, fuchsias,
abutilon, heliotrope, ferns, etc., a night temperature of 45 to 55
degrees, with 10 to 20 degrees higher during the day, will keep them in
good growing condition during the winter, providing they are neglected
in no other respect. So long as they are not chilled, they cannot have
too much fresh air during sunny days. Make it your