231 



TANK-HEATING AND EARLY FORCING. 



It is often a matter of some difficulty for the 



proprietor of a small establishment, to hit 

 upon the right sort of house in which to 

 secure a succession of early forced fruit and 

 vegetables, and, at the same time, make 

 room for some select stove and greenhouse 

 plants; but, in large places, the difficulty 

 does not so often occur, because structures are 

 adapted to each of the several kinds of work, 

 and, of course, with greater convenience, 

 safety, and certainty. When a man says, I 

 want cucumbers at Christmas, and they must 

 be grown with orchids, early greenhouse 

 flowers, and stove plants, one is prepared to 

 answer in a way to dispirit him, and, instead 

 of showing him how he is most likely to 

 accomplish his object, use very strong argu- 

 ments to show that it cannot be done at all. 

 Now, plants of all kinds possess a good deal 

 of adaptability, and the more so, if they are 

 prepared for it by the whole course of culture 

 to which they are submitted ; and, in the 

 house I shall now describe, this adaptability 

 can be admirably turned to account, provided 

 justice is done to all, as far as giving suffi- 

 cient room, air, and light, are concerned. 

 Many years since, I had a house erected for 

 the culture of early cucumbers. Till then, 

 we had always grown them in pits, but the 

 bother of lining, the frequent accidents that 

 arose through failure of heat, and the long 

 time that sometimes elapsed before the heat 

 could be got up again, during which the 

 plants were pretty sure to sutler, and the 

 tilth, the labour, and the anxiety, deter- 

 mined me to erect a house for the purpose, 

 and an angle of 43 degs. was determined 

 on, with a set of flues, and a furnace, for 

 heat. Though not a dead failure, the plan 

 was not a decided success, for we were still 

 obliged to use fermenting materials to get 

 sufficient bottom heat, and, at last, when an 

 accident occurred to a portion of the flue 

 near the furnace, by which the smoke got 

 into the house, and played terrible havoc, 

 before the escape was detected, the whole 

 house was remodelled, the flues removed, and 

 hot-water pipes laid in their stead, with a 

 tank instead of a dung-pit, for bottom heat. 

 This was not long accomplished, when it was 

 found that the house Avould suit for all kinds 

 of early work, the labour was reduced to a 

 minimum, the temperature could be regulated 

 with the greatest ease and certainty, and the 

 place could be kept as clean and tidy as a 

 lady's boudoir. 



The house is built against the end of a 

 shed, and is twelve feet wide, and twenty- 

 three feet long. At a is the ground level, 

 below which the pathway b, is excavated a foot 

 and a half, and, at c, the excavation is a 



half-foot deeper, to form a bed under the 

 tank. The tank d d, is fifteen feet long, 

 and is supplied by flow and return pipes, 

 with additional pipes e, by a branch from 

 the flow, to supply atmospheric heat. To 

 keep up a circulation of air, as well as of 

 heat, there is an aperture in the front wall 

 /; which can be opened, or closed, at 

 pleasure. When opened, air is admitted 

 under the pipes e, into a chamber g, from 

 whence it passes through an opening /(, 

 into the tank, and thus gets moistened, as 

 well as warmed, before it enters the house, 

 through the tubes n, which are placed at in- 

 tervals along the casing of the tank, and all 

 of which can be closed, when necessary. 



After circulating round the house, the air 

 escapes through the back wall, at i, and at 

 this opening, as well as at J\ the ventilation 

 is regulated by a sliding shutter outside, the 

 one in the back wall being also worked from 

 within, by means of a cord, over a pulley. 



The tank is of slate, encased in brickwork, 

 with a partition down the middle, to regulate 

 the circulation of the water. When used for 

 cucumbers and melons, a bed is made up at 

 m, a good depth of loose rubble being first 

 laid down, for drainage, and the soil is added 

 as required by the plants, for if the bed were 

 filled at once, much of it would get soured 

 before the roots had worked into it. Under 

 the tank is an open space for a bed o, and 



