200 THE GARDENER. [May 



We do not require to look far afield or study profoundly to see that 

 there is a waste of heat going, and apparently to be allowed to go, on 

 with the greatest complacency in this country, first, in nearly every dwell- 

 ing-house in the kingdom, to an extent which, when it comes to be 

 considered, is barely worthy of the rudest barbarism. Most certainly, 

 if such a deliberate waste was perpetrated in connection with any other 

 necessary of life, it would not be too much to look or call for Govern- 

 ment interference to prevent it. By way of pretending to heat our 

 living rooms and cook our food, architects persist in making a recess in 

 one corner of our rooms, in which to burn coal by the hundredweight ; 

 and which is effectual in no earthly way, unless it be that of sending 

 the whole, or nearly the whole, heat up a chimney, to serve no purpose 

 more sensible than that of being a nuisance to all animal and vege- 

 table life outside our dwellings ; unless, indeed, it be the still more 

 undesirable one of creating draughts of cold air inside, and rheumatics 

 and colds to boot. This is one of the most dep*lorably outrageous 

 wastes of an expensive necessary of life that ever characterised any 

 age or nation worthy of being ranked among the scientific and civil- 

 ised. We do not think it is too much to say that there is as much 

 heat wasted in Glasgow as would heat every dwelling and hothouse in 

 Scotland, or as much wasted in London as would go a long way to- 

 wards keeping every shivering limb in England warm and comfortable 

 if it were properly applied. 



But turning to Horticulture, with which we have at present to do, 

 it cannot be said certainly that the waste is so deplorable as in the 

 case of our living-rooms and kitchens. Indeed, if gardeners heated 

 hothouses in so dirty, unhealthy, and wasteful a manner as their living 

 rooms are heated, it would take twenty fires for one that is used in 

 connection with horticulture. Perhaps it may, however, be justly said 

 that, as we heat by hot water travelling in iron pipes, a certain and 

 considerable amount of waste is unavoidable. It may be difficult to 

 dispute this ; but surely horticultural engineering and genius are not so 

 fully exhausted as to be bound for ever to water and pipes of iron, 

 which, in spite of dampers and the most ingenious boilers yet in- 

 vented, only catch or absorb part of the heat generated by coal ; the 

 rest is so far wasted in passing into space by the very " short cut" of 

 chimneys. 



Our present object is to appeal to our horticultural engineers and 

 Royal Societies for assistance. Can they do nothing more, nothing as 

 good, and yet much cheaper, in the way of heating the air of our hot- 

 houses, than exists just now in the shape of expensive boilers, tons 

 of bricks and iron, and water 1 Never before was economy of heat 

 so urgent in the history of British gardens, at least not since railroads 



