20 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



Joyce's Patent Stoves, which is decidedly effectual and decidedly 

 expensive. I don't know what it costs per week for charcoal to 

 keep it going, but I know it is more than I care to pay. Neverthe- 

 less, one of these, for which I paid fifteen shillings, keeps the frost 

 out of a little lean-to house measuring 9 feet each way, and I should 

 think it would do for a house double that size, for I could get heat 

 enough out of mine to roast everything if I wished to do so. The 

 way in which I regulate the draught is to attach a hook made of 

 No. 1 iron wire, on the edge of the opening which admits the 

 draught, and push the slide down upon the wire. This leaves a slit 

 for air about the sixteenth of an inch. Rushlights and candles I 

 have used many a time in pits and frames ; they are expensive 

 while the game goes on ; yet, as we seldom have frosts that last 

 beyond ten days of any degree of severity, a few shillings or a pound 

 or two spent in a lump is not an extravagant thing after all. I con- 

 sider if I had a boiler and pipes, the first outlay would be consi- 

 derable, and then coke would cost something. Besides, my little 

 houses are scattered about in places where I could find space to 

 build them, and consequently one boiler would not heat them all 

 without great expense and loss of heat by the distance it would 

 have to travel. Lastly, I tried Hays's Patent Constant Stove last 

 winter. It is an admirable thing, elegant in appearance, easily 

 managed, and has the great advantage of burning slowly, so that 

 roasting is impossible. I advise all who use small stoves to have 

 flues to them. I don't believe in innocuous vapours if fuel is burned 

 in a house with plants. Easy enough : take a sufficient length of 

 iron gas-pipe, get a smith to fix it so that it will screw into the top 

 of the stove when required, which allows of its being removed in 

 summer. To carry it through the roof, knock out a square of glass, 

 and insert instead a square of zinc, with a hole cut in it for the 

 pipe to pass through, and daub a little putty round outside to make 

 it watertight. 



A neighbour of mine has a beautiful house of plants economi- 

 cally and effectually heated by a small conical boiler set in brick- 

 work. These are really the best of boilers for small houses. The 

 way in which heating is made expensive is the fid-fadding style of 

 fitting the pipes together with iron cement. My neighbour em- 

 ployed Mr. Lynch White, of Upper Ground Street, Blackfriars, 

 and, to his and my surprise, there was no cement used. I knew of 

 the simple and cheap way of fitting pipes without cement, but I had 

 an idea the trade repudiated it on account of its cheapness. Not 

 so in this case ; the pipes were first fitted with vulcanized India- 

 rubber rings, or collars, then driven home, and the job was done. 

 One of these boilers, and a service of 4-inch pipes, is the best 

 system for any house between 30 and GO feet in length ; but about 

 larger houses I can say nothing, having had no experience or oppor- 

 tunity for observation. 



