February 17. 1906 



HORTICULTURE 



205 



s*?&. 



n Zl have , us f y" ur Fumigating Kini Tobacco Powder for the last six years and prefer it to any 

 other remedy for Green Fly; it is clean and easy to apply and does not discolor the blooms." 



WILLIAM K . PARTRIDGE, Cincinnati, Ohio. 



fc 4L, . Why not :.sk for a Jree five pound trial sample: its convincing: it only costs you the express charee T.-c 

 ■V> »ngl=d thing, hundreds write of it hke Mr. Wm.K.Panudge. n„, booklet tells h w to ?umf e a« Th„,,L eW 

 lee, with .1 for fifteen cents. The H. A. Stoothoff Company, n 9 West Street New York QtyN y '°°" 5 



HM 



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tional heat from the fire, an equality 

 of temperature can never occur. 



In heating greenhouses with either 

 steam or hot water the boiler is placed 

 in the cellar or pit where the nature 

 of the ground permits digging. Often- 

 times owing to the houses being built 

 on rock it is impossible to place the 

 boiler in a cellar. In this case it can 

 be placed on the floor level of the 

 greenhouse, and it then becomes 

 necessary to use what is termed the 

 drop system of circulation. This term 

 applies to hot water heating only. By 

 drop circulation is meant where the 

 main is carried directly from the boil- 

 er to the highest point on the job, and 

 there relieved of air by a connection 

 to the expansion tank. The flow main 

 is then carried along the ridge of the 

 house to its farthest point, and then 

 drops or feeds into the return pipes 

 under the benches. While this system 

 works as well when properly installed 

 as the usual way (that is. by having 

 all the pipes under the benches), still 

 wherever it is possible to do so I would 

 recommend that a cellar be dug for 

 the boilers and be made as deep as 

 possible; the deeper the cellar is dug, 

 the better will be circulation of the 

 water: for the deeper the cellar, the 

 more pressure there will be to the 

 water, and the more pressure the bet- 

 ter the circulation. 



Where there is more than one 

 house, the boiler should always be 

 placed as near to the center of these 

 houses as possible. This is done to 

 insure an even distribution of the 

 heat, and has always been found to 

 be much more satisfactory than when 

 the boiler is placed otherwise. 



The return pipes as well as the flow 

 pipes in heating a greenhouse are 

 counted as radiating surface, or, I 

 might say. all pipes, flows, branches, 

 and returns. The expansion tank 

 should be of sufficient size for the 

 work: that is, one gallon capacity for 

 every 50 square feet of heating sur- 

 face; otherwise there will always be 

 trouble by having the tank overflow- 

 ing whenever you are firing hard; and 

 if the expansion tank is not properly 

 connected, which I have often found 

 to be the case, this overflowing has 

 been known to syphon all the water 

 out of the apparatus, without the man 

 in charge being aware of it. 



Now comes the question: Which is 

 the best pipe to use in heating a 

 greenhouse? Many gardeners claim 

 they get better results from wrought 

 iron pipe than from castiron. while 

 many others claim just the opposite. 

 Now, while this is a matter of opin- 

 ion and a very delicate subject to dwell 

 on, still, from my personal experience, 

 the only advantage I can see that 

 wrought iron pipe has over cast iron; 

 is that it is easier to install and heats 

 up quicker than cast iron; while, 

 on the other hand, once a cast 

 iron pipe is heated, it will bold its 

 heat much longer than wrought iron. 



This is a great advantage in case of 

 an accident where it is necessary to 

 draw off tin- water on a wintry day. 

 Then, again, the life of cast iron pipe 

 in a greenhouse is more than double 

 the life of wrought iron, unless the 

 wrought iron pipe is painted every 

 year. In painting pipes in green- 

 houses nothing but lampblack and oil 

 should be used. Under no circum- 

 stances should anything else but this 

 be used, as it has been proven to be 

 injurious to plants to use anything 

 else. One little thing, and it is a very 

 important one, I would like to call the 

 attention of gardeners to. and it is the 

 necessity of opening the air valves 

 every day. This applies to a hot 

 water job of the latest style; that is, 

 a galvanized tank usually placed in 

 the potting shed in place of the old- 

 fashioned castiron ones at the end 

 of each coil. I often find that these 

 vents are never opened from the day 

 the job is erected until there is some 

 change made in the piping. Now, 

 while this is a very small matter, still 

 it is a most important one, as there is 

 a certain amount of air in water; and 

 if these vents are not opened regu- 

 larly, air will gather and impede the 

 circulation of the water and often- 

 times stop the circulation entirely. 

 Now, while speaking of valves, I would 

 like to impress upon all gardeners and 

 florists the advantage of placing stop 

 valves (by stop valves, I mean a valve 

 for shutting off the heat) on both the 

 flow and return pipes of every coil and 

 also the boiler. While this adds 'con- 

 siderable to the cost of erecting your 

 heating plant, still in case of accident 

 in winter it will pay for itself tenfold. 

 Some of the advantages to be gained 

 by doing this are as follows: We'll 

 start at the boiler. Suppose there is 

 only one boiler heating the plant. It 

 gives out on a cold day if you have 

 not got it valved: you lose all your 

 water and heat with it; whereas if the 

 boiler were valved it would only be 

 necessary to close the valves, and 

 your water being heated, would re- 

 main in the pipes and keep your 

 houses warm until temporary or final 

 repairs could be made. Where there 

 is more than one boiler doing the 

 work, the bad one could be shut off 

 and the other one or more, as the case 

 may be, could be kept going and keep 

 the houses from freezing. In the 

 course of my experience I have seen 

 many a range of houses in danger of 

 freezing when one boiler gave out, 

 simply because the boilers were not 

 valved; when the one boiler gave out, 

 n crippled all the others, owing to 

 having to draw the waler off all the 

 others until repairs could be made. 

 Every main to each house, flow and 

 return, should also be valved for simi- 

 lar reasons, and I would like all gar- 

 deners and florists to profit by my ex- 

 periences; ami whenever it is possible 

 to do so, insist that the boiler and 

 the flow and return main to each 



house be valved, and 1 can safely say 

 that if you follow this advice it will 

 save you many a gray hair should any- 

 thing happen your piping or boilers 

 in midwinter. Experience has taught 

 me this lesson thoroughly. 



Now another question which is 

 often asked, and I think is a very deli- 

 cate one to dwell on, because I know 

 a great many gardeners and florists 

 will not agree with me, is: Which is 

 the best heat for greenhouse pur- 

 poses, steam or hot water? I claim 

 hot water has a great many advan- 

 tages over steam, and is therefore the 

 best for greenhouse purposes. Among 

 the advantages hot water has over 

 steam are the following: absolute 

 safety under all possible conditions; 

 the apparatus cannot explode, being 

 open to the atmosphere through the 

 expansion tank; ease of management; 

 it is not necessary to hire an engineer 

 to run it; anyone that can put on coal 

 can attend to it; economical in fuel; 

 when once heated it is not necessary 

 to force the fire, a slow fire answer- 

 ing all purposes, and this will keep 

 the water circulating through all the 

 pipes, so long as there is any fire left, 

 ami a great saving of coal is the re- 

 sult. 



It is noiseless in operation, there 

 being no snapping and cracking, as is 

 often the case with steam. There is 

 no possible danger from fire; the pipes 

 anil boilers, being filled with water, 

 cannot be heated to a higher degree 

 than boiling water. It can therefore 

 lie readily seen that there is no dan- 

 ger to surrounding woodwork. 



The heat being driven from pipes 

 filled with water, it can be regulated 

 to a degree. In a steam heater the 

 temperature must be 212 degrees or 

 nothing. The moment the water in 

 the boiler becomes of a lower fem- 

 perature there will be no heat in the 

 pipes, notwithstanding the consump- 

 tion of fuel continues. With hot 

 water you can heat to any degree from 

 cold water to boiling by simply regu- 

 lating the fire. The only time steam 

 is more advantageous to use than hot 

 water is. to my mind, in a very large 

 of houses or in the extreme 

 northern part of the United States or 



Carman's Anfipest 



INSECTICIDE AND FUNGICIDE 

 For :he Garden, Orchard and Greenhouse. 

 Nonpoisonous and harmless to 

 vegetation. 

 Kills Green Fly, Aphides. Bark Lice, 

 Thrip, Meaiy Bug, Red Spider, 

 Scale, Wire Worms, Ants 

 and Slugs. 

 This is the Grower's Friend, handy to 

 use, cheap and effect ve, mixes readily in 

 Destroys all insect pests and keeps 

 filth. $1.50 per gallon. Also in quarts, 

 us and in bulk. Send for circulars. 



PERFECTION CHEMICAL CO, 

 Flushing, N. Y. 



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