e right hand near the upper end. The back of your hand should
be up. Now the left hand should be a foot or more below the other hand.
And see the back of my hand. It is toward the left and my thumb points
down the handle, just so with the rake handle."

All summer long the boy worked or cultivated his piece of land. He kept
hoeing and weeding constantly.

One of the August pieces of work was to fix the hotbed for winter. Now
the frame was taken up and the pit dug deeper--about two feet this time.
Previous to this a great pile of manure had been heaped up near by. Jack
had sprinkled it with hot water to start fermentation. Steam rising from
the heap was proof of this, and it may be used at this time.

Then the manure was put into the pit. An eighteen-inch bed of it was
made and firmly tramped down. At first the temperature of this was over
one hundred degrees. When it dropped to ninety-five degrees soil was put
on. The temperature was taken by means of a thermometer buried in the
manure. The frame was placed after two inches of soil had been put in;
then four more inches went on. The surface of the soil was made to slope
at the same angle as the glass. All about the frame was banked, again,
manure covered with earth and leaf matter.

Jack transplanted violet plants into one compartment. These were good
violets and were placed four inches apart. In the second bed he sowed
foxglove, pansy and stock. The third was left for radish and lettuce, a
bit later.

Elizabeth helped him sew together several thicknesses of straw matting
as covering for the winter nights. They had decided that newspapers next
the glass, then the mats, and finally a rubber blanket, would be
protection sufficient.

But Jack's hotbed work is quite another story. However, I can tell you
that the next winter he added two other frames to this one.

X

ALBERT AND JAY'S DRAINAGE PROBLEM.

The problem of draining which Albert and Jay had to consider, was
perhaps the biggest piece of work that was done all that spring. In the
first place, it should have been done in the fall. That is the time to
do such work, for if put off until spring it delays greatly the spring
planting.

It was a wet spring, too. The boys, rather impatient of waiting, started
digging one day, but it ended in disaster. The ground was soft and wet
and hence very heavy to handle. This piece of land was one hundred feet
wide or deep. It had a frontage of one hundred and fift