Next the aster plants were transplanted.  This was done after the same manner as the lettuce.  They were placed about one foot apart each way.  These were put across the entire spot just as the sunflowers had been.  Thirty-two little aster plants were set out and still Jack had a number left over.  It is amazing the amount of aster plants one can raise from a little packet of seeds.  “I’m going to sell the rest of these aster plants,” he declared.  And he did.  The boy tramped about until he found a lady desiring the plants, to whom he sold 50 little plants for $1 and set them out for 50 cents.

The rest of the garden space was used for the onions, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and radish.

The onions transplanted from the coldframe gave fine early onions with a mild flavour.

When Jack was making furrows for the sunflower seed Jay came along and leaned over the fence.  “Jack,” he drawled, “you look like a kangaroo all humped over making that furrow.  Why don’t you use your hoe right?”

“I thought I was using it right.  Come in here and show me how, will you?”

So Jay jumped the fence and picked up the hoe.  “Stand this way!  Straddle the furrow with your back in the direction you are going to hoe; or else stand on the left side of the furrow facing it.  Grasp the handle of the hoe in the 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.