220 THE GARDENER. [May 



One of the failings of our boiler-makers is a penchant for adding side 

 and top auxiliary flues, in the belief that they are thereby adding 

 power to the boiler. Neither wings nor top flues should ever be 

 added to a saddle boiler till it becomes so long that you cannot reach 

 the end of it conveniently with the poker. When this happens, and 

 you have any iron to spare, you may use it to make a tail or a wing 

 outside, but not before. You can never get so much heat from an 

 outside flue as you can get from that portion of the boiler which is 

 exposed to the direct action of the fire ; and with a long saddle of pro- 

 portionate width, and set on fire-brick, you may challenge the most 

 complicated or best silver or gold medal boiler ever invented, and feel 

 sure of beating them, provided you know how to stoke. 



MORE SCIENTIFIC BALDERDASH. 



"M. Regnard has been inquiring into the much -disputed problem, why 

 vegetation does not grow well beneath trees, notwithstanding that there is 

 plenty of light, pure air, humidity, and warmth. He has confirmed the 

 observations of M. Paul Bert, who had already shown that green light hinders 

 the development of plants. Plants enclosed in a green glass frame wither 

 and die as though they were in darkness. M. Regnard finds that plants 

 specially require the red rays. If the sunlight is deprived of the red rays 

 the plants soon cease to thrive. This fact explains why plants grow well in 

 rooms upholstered or papered in red, while they wither in rooms upholstered 

 or papered in green." 



It can hardly be said that it has been a much-disputed point by 

 English gardeners, at least, why vegetation does not grow well beneath 

 trees. It has generally been supposed that the reason was the same 

 as that which prevented plants thriving in a dark cupboard with the 

 door shut. It was not known before that plants died in a green glass 

 frame, but the contrary was supposed to be the case ; and gardeners, 

 even of Kew, if we remember correctly, painted some of their glass 

 roofs green, and recommended the plan. The French horticulturists 

 themselves shade their plant-houses with a kind of green Venetian 

 blinds that gives everything inside a green look ; and yet their plants 

 thrive admirably. The "fact" of plants growing in red -papered 

 rooms, and dying in green-papered ones, is unadulterated lunacy. As 

 barren a piece of ground as we ever saw was under the branches of a 

 spreading purple or red beech. It is the fault of French horticultur- 

 ists and botanists that they are a trifle too "scientific" and philoso- 

 phical. Their " high-class" gardening partakes too much of the labora- 

 tory, hence these errors and contrarieties. It is not long since one of 

 the most learned horticulturists in France, Lavallee, was at great 

 pains to explain how it was that vegetation throve under beech and 

 other trees ; now we are having it explained by another of his country- 

 men why it does not thrive. It is this same " scientific " penchant 

 which has created the innumerable fantastic systems of training fruit- 



