How to Start Garden Seeds Early

From the book Homemade Contrivances, 1899

The ground is often cold when the seed is put into the garden plot. To get the earliest vegetables, have a few boxes without bottoms and with a sliding pane of glass for a top, as shown in the cut. Let the top slope toward the sun. Shut the slide entirely until the plant breaks ground, then ventilate as one would in a hotbed, as suggested in the right-hand sketch. A few such boxes will make some of the garden products ten days earlier - worth trying for.