THE 



GARDENER. 



MAY 1873. 



CAN OUR PRESENT WASTE IN HEATING HOTHOUSES 

 NOT BE REMEDIED? 



F the present exceptionally high price of coal continues, 

 will it affect injuriously the development and progress 

 of the forcing or hothouse department of Horticulture ? 

 This is a question which is being considered at pre- 

 sent with considerable misgiving. That it will exercise a con- 

 siderable influence on the owners of gardens, as to whether they 

 shall expand their glass-houses, or make a beginning in the case of 

 those who have not yet embarked in the production of tender fruits 

 and flowers, is beyond any doubt. In many localities coal is at pre- 

 sent nearly, if not quite in some instances, two hundred per cent 

 higher in price than it was three or four years ago. ISTor is coal the 

 only agent at present indispensable in hothouse heating that has ad- 

 vanced in price. Coal is only the heat-generating agent. Iron forms 

 the highway by which it is carried and distributed to the atmosphere 

 of our plant and fruit houses ; and iron, too — always an important item 

 in hothouse erections — is now well-nigh 100 per cent dearer than it 

 was two or three years ago. Here, then, we stand face to face with 

 two articles — to say nothing of others — on which this important 

 branch of gardening is, it may be said, solely dependent, enormously 

 enhanced in cost ; and it would be folly to doubt that, in conse- 

 quence, fewer Orchid-houses, Graperies, and Pineries will be erected, 

 unless some means of great economy in heat crops up to counterbalance 

 the present state of things, which it is to be feared may last for a con- 

 siderable time. 



p 



