A lady furnished a detailed account to the Gardeners' Chronicle of her contrivance for starting seedlings in early spring in place of a hot-bed, the substance of which is as follows : A stout wooden box was made about twenty inches square and about eighteen inches deep. This was supported on four legs, a hole was made in the bottom and boxed round; then about two inches of cocoa-nut refuse was placed over the bottom of the box, and packed round a common tin baking dish; on this were placed two or three strips of wood to support a sheet of perforated zinc with a hole in it, through which was; let in a common two inch draining pipe in a vertical direction, so as to enable water to be poured into the dish. Over the zinc cover was a layer of broken pottery, and over that a quantity of fine sandy soil, filling up the box to within six inches of the top. An ordinary square garden hand-light, with upright sides and pyramidal top, was put over the whole apparatus, and a lamp was placed under the hole in the bottom of the box. The seeds were sown in small pots, which were sunk in the soil to a greater or less depth, according to the amount of heat which they required.

The steam from the hot water passed through the holes in the zinc, and kept the soil moist and warm, raising the tempera-; ture at the surface to about 70- Fahrenheit. Of course the water in the baking dish required to be renewed to replace the loss occasioned by evaporation, and a little practice soon taught how often this should be done. As the frequency must depend on the depth of the baking dish, etc, each experimenter must ascertain for himself, by occasionally putting a stick down the draining pipe, and noticing the depth of the water below; for if by carelessness he allows the water to entirely evaporate a hole in the tin will be the result. As the young seedlings grew it became necessary to provide more room for them in a longer box, or one two feet wide and four feet long, not heated with a lamp, but with a special tank to be filled with hot water every twenty-four hours, and with a tap for drawing off the water which had cooled, and a bent pipe at the side for filling it, which, being no higher than the top of the tank, prevented danger of over-filling. It was covered with sliding lights.

This box, not being so warm as the other, answered well for receiving seedlings already started.