1260 



The Weekly Florists' Review, 



>Iay 



1904. 



A HOME-MADE HEATING PLANT. 



I am about to enlarge my plant and 

 desire some information concerning heat- 

 ing. My present plant is small and the 

 heating was planned and installed by 

 myself, out of cheap material. It has, 

 however, been ver^- effective and an- 

 sweTed every purpose of a plant house. 

 I have been able to keep the temperature 

 at from 45 to 50 degiees at night dur- 

 ing the past winter by burning coke, 

 leaving the (ire for three hours at least, 

 and kept the temperature quite steady. 

 I could have carried a higher tempera- 

 ture by firing more often. My boiler is 

 an ordinary upright, twenty-six inches 

 in diameter and five feet high, having 

 thirty-two 194-inch flues about three 

 feet in length. I laid the boiler on its 

 side, with "the door opening down, and 

 bricked it in, closing tlie bottom with 

 brick. I thus had a fire place that was 

 about fourteen inches wide, fourteen 

 inches from grate to boiler and tliree 

 feet in length. My grate was about 

 thirteen inches wide and eighteen inches 

 long, ordinary bar grate. The fire would 

 be carried along the under side of the 

 boiler through the doorway and return- 

 ing through the flues. I bolted on the 

 cap or dome, which was built for a 10- 

 inch pipe. This I reduced to eight 

 inches, passing into a chimney a few feet 

 distant. Last year I bought a sheet-iron 

 smokestack twenty-two feet high and fif- 

 teen inches in diameter. This I obtained 

 very cheap, but it condensed the smoke 

 and was always cold and dead. It soon 

 rotted out. The past winter I used ten 

 feet of 10-ineh tile and always had a 

 good and sufficieBt draft. 



The boiler was tapped on the upp°r 

 side, about half way from each end. bv 

 a 2-inch pipe, which rose to a height 



feet, the four returning under the 

 benches and the bunch of three along 

 the west side wall, all coming together at 

 the north end again into a short length 

 of 2-inch pil^e. my mixer, thence return- 

 ing to the bottom of the boiler. About 

 one-half of the boiler is covered by a 

 propagating bench, which is further 

 heated by a coil of pipe. The green- 

 house is 20 X 43 feet; the west side 

 wall four feet high; twelve feet high in 

 center; the south end connected with 

 office, having a few feet of glass, however. 

 The 1-inch pipe I got for a song. It is 

 in nine-foot lengths and could be used 

 for supports in mj" new house. 



What I want to know is this: How 

 much more glass will that boiler heat 

 with a reasonable amount of care and 

 what size pipe should I get? I have 

 been heating with hot water. Would it 

 make the boiler more eflBcient if it were 

 tapped with two more 2-inch flows; which 

 would rise to a 3-inch or a 4-inch main 

 flow? It seems to me that it could then 

 be fired twice as hard as I have fired it. 



Here is another question: In the pres- 

 ent instance, if I had lV2-inch pipes in- 

 stead of 1-inch, or if I had more 1-inch 

 in the said house, would the same amount 

 of firing have created a higher tempera- 

 ture or would it have been necessary to 

 fire stronger to heat the additional pipe ? 

 If I should build an additional house 25 

 X 150 would you advise a larger boiler 

 and with other additions in view what 

 size and kind of boiler would you ad- 

 vise? I have just finished a propagat- 

 ing house 16 X 16 at the north end of 

 the house 20 x 43. A. W. T. 



The piping system which you have 

 worked out is certainly a novel one, but 

 since it seems to have been efficient and 



Hydrangeas Grown by Skillin Bros., Falmouth, Vt., for Memorial Day, 1903. 



of about seven feet from the level of the 

 floor (the boiler is about one-half its 

 diameter above the level ) , and crosses 

 the end of the house. It commenced to 

 drop from the point above the boiler and 

 when I tapped the 2-inch I did so from 

 the under side. At the center of the 

 house I tapped with l^A-inch, branching 

 to four 1-inch pipes. At the end of the 

 2-inch pipe it branched to three 1-inch 

 pipes. These seven 1-inch pipes were 

 carried the length of the house, forty 



fairly economical, no criticism need be 

 made. The small pipes (1-inch), how- 

 ever, make the flow of water slower than 

 it would be in larger pipes because of 

 the greater friction and the small vol- 

 ume of water contained in them. The 

 usual practice is to carry the risers full 

 size to the most distant point in the 

 system, which should also be the his-li 

 est point, and there sub-divide into the 

 required number of returns to provide 

 the temperature desired. 



You have, as I understand it, fourteen 

 1-inch pipes running from end to end of 

 your house, seven flows and seven re- 

 turns. These fourteen 1-ineh pipes, if 

 forty feet long, provide oidy 192.6 feet 

 of radiation, which is about 100 feet 

 less than would ordinarily be provided 

 for maintaining a temperatme of 50 de- 

 grees in such a house. The only explana- 

 tion that suggests itself is that you are 

 able to heat the water in the boiler to 

 200 degrees, which would account for 

 the efficiency of the small amount of pip- 

 ing in the house. Tliis in connection 

 with the fact that the boiler, which is 

 capable of supplying heat for 500 feet 

 of radiation, has only been carrying less 

 than 200. If you increase the amount 

 of radiation by the addition of more 

 houses it will be necessary to somewhat 

 increase the piping in this house because 

 it will be necessary to circulate a some- 

 what greater amount of water. It is 

 likely that vou can heat another house 

 the same siz'e of the one you have with 

 the present boiler. If you can have the 

 boiler tapped out frv a 2V2-mch flow in 

 place of the 2-inch it will carry the full 

 oapacitv of your boiler, or you can nc- 

 complish the same thing by tapping for 

 a second 2-inch flow, i. e.. using two off- 

 take pipes instead of one. The returns 

 should, however, be of nearly equal ea- 



''''lf*^T0u wish to build an additional 

 house 25 X 100 feet it w-iU require a 

 verv considerable incre.ise in the size of 

 the boiler. Tlie present house 20 x 4,5, 

 the house 16 x 16 and the house 

 9.5 X 100 would require a toiler with 

 about 125 feet of heating surface, while 

 the one you have, if dimensions are cor- 

 rectly stated, has about sixty^five ^eet. 



LEAF-MOLD IN ORCHID CULTURE. 



The results obtained from the use of 

 leaf-mold in the cultivation of orchids 

 have fully justified the advice we gave 

 o orchidists some two X^-l «g%*° 

 exercise the greatest care, both m the 

 ^rfparation of the composts containing 

 that substance, and in watering the 

 plants growing in them, says the Gard- 

 eners' Magazine. We suggested at the 

 .ame time that the use of this material 

 should be regarded as in the experimen^ 

 tal stage, and pointed out that while a 

 liberal proportion of decayed leaves 

 might, w'ith special care in watering, en- 

 courage a vigorous leaf growth, it may 

 not te favorable to flower production 

 Further experience would appear to 

 show that this is really the case. It 

 appears to be proved to demonstration 

 that used with the requisite care leaf- 

 mold is highly favorable to the rapid 

 development of leaf growth. Seedling 

 orchids, when growing in a mixture con- 

 taining a liberal proportion, make a 

 more rapid progress than m peat or 

 sphagnum, or a mixture of the two, and. 

 as a rule, reach a flowering stage in a 

 shorter period. Not only seedlings, but 

 voung plants raised by division, whether 

 "of home growth or imported specimens, 

 grow more rapidly when potted in leaf- 

 mold, or in a mixture of which it forms 

 a large part, and a noteworthy feature 

 in these and seedlings is the great in- 

 crease in the size of the pseudo-bulbs 

 and leaves, as compared with those of 

 the previous season, for two or three 

 years after the change in the compo- 

 nent parts of the compost has been 

 made. This is only what might have 



