390 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HEATING A CONSERVATORY. 

 BY GOVE WRIGHT, ROCK FALLS, ILL. 



The following communication was read by the Secretary, by the 

 request of the President : 



Mr. Lewis Ellsworth, President, etc. 



Dear Sir : At your request, I will give you my method of heating a 

 conservatory or bay-window, which, I think, is more economical than 

 the usual practice of warming it from another room, or putting a stove 

 in the conservatory. Besides, it has the advantage of giving a moist 

 atmosphere, of uniform temperature, and a constant circulation of air, 

 without more ventilation than ordinary leakage. The plan is simply this: 



Make a small cellar, the full size of the bay-window, or four by six 

 feet, for the conservatory, by extending the foundation walls down six 

 feet, and open a door into the main cellar. Into this cellar put a small 

 base-burning, self-feeding, hard-coal stove, and connect it by any practical 

 method with the chimney of the dwelling. In my own case, I ran a brick 

 flue under a porch, twelve feet, into the main cellar, and then used sixteen 

 feet of stove-pipe to connect with the chimney. This pipe is coated out- 

 side and inside with asphaltum varnish, to keep it from rusting. The 

 draught will be better if the stove is connected with a chimney which is 

 warmed by another fire. Through the floor of the conservatory (or 

 bay-window) make two six-inch holes, and into one of them insert a pipe 

 from sixteen to twenty-four inches long, extending above the floor, for a 

 hot-air pipe; and from the other hole let a pipe reach nearly to the 

 bottom of the cellar, for a cold-air pipe. The hot-air pipe should not 

 extend below the floor, nor should the cold-air pipe reach above the floor. 

 Six-inch pipes are large enough for a conservatory six by eight feet ; but 

 a greater number, or those of larger capacity, can be used for rooms of 

 greater size. It is better to let the cold-air pipe come down near the 

 draught of the stove ; and the hot air can be directed to any part of the 

 conservatory by means of a sheet of tin or board placed slanting above it. 

 I use two hot-air pipes — one under the bench for cuttings, and the other 

 under a bench for begonias, bouvardias, and other plants which require a 

 high temperature — and I allow the hot air to escape next to the outer 

 walls of glass. Directly under the windows, or glass walls, I made a 

 sloping trough, to catch the cold air which falls from the frosted windows, 

 and conduct it to the cold-air pipe. This is not necessary; but my object 

 is to conduct the cold air to the cellar without allowing it to reduce the 

 temperature of the conservatory. If a conservatory, or bay-window, has 

 one hundred feet of glass covered with frost, it is equivalent to a refrig- 

 erator with an ice-box containing thirty-six cubic feet of ice ; and it is 

 cheaper to let the cold air flowing from it pass directly into the cellar, 

 than to attempt to neutralize it in the immediate vicinity of tender plants. 

 Perhaps the philosophy of the hot-air and cold-air pipes can best 

 be best illustrated by my experiments, which led to their use. When I 



