THE 



GARDENER. 



JUNE 1871. 



HEATING ANI> VENTILATING. 



T would be difficult to name two more important or sternly 

 practical operations connected with Horticulture, than 

 those represented by the couplet with which we have 

 headed these observations. Heat and air are two of the 

 most subtle elements — if we may term the first named an 

 element — with which man can intermeddle. Yet the success of 

 the Horticulturist in the cultivating of many plants and fruits 

 depends to a very great extent on the way in which they are applied 

 and regulated. Hence we venture to say that there is probably more 

 anxiety and irritation arising from these two sources, in the case of 

 those who have to manage ranges of hothouses, than from all others 

 put together. Those who act in the capacities of stoker and ventilator 

 are generally not long in finding out, from a fastidious superintendence, 

 that their hottest tests arise, in more senses than one, from the stoke- 

 hole, and their coolest judgment must be exercised, and sometimes 

 overruled, in the matter of ventilating. We feel certain that we have 

 just written down what many an under-garden er and their super- 

 intendents can fully endorse. The dangers arising from potting and 

 watering, stopping and training &c., are nothing in subtleness as 

 compared to those which often follow in the train of injudicious 

 firing and air-giving. This may perhaps sound strangely in the ears 

 of the novice and unexperienced, but a little consideration will serve 

 to show that we have not drawn upon fancy or imagination for such 

 a statement. 



