104 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



{Aprili 



not to let tlie plants suffer for the want of water. 

 About the first of October they should be removed 

 to the green-house, giving them plenty of air at 

 all times until the nights become cold and chilly, 

 then the house should be closed. 



^N'o. 13. Failures and their Causes. — I question 

 if there is any one who has grown rose buds for 

 the market who has not had failures, as well as 

 success. From my own experience, and from 

 what has come under my personal observations, 

 I here note what I consider the causes of so 

 many failures. Over-manured borders badly 

 drained, produce an unnatural pithy growth, 

 which never becomes ripened. Such a border 

 in less than two years, will become a putrifled 

 mass of matter, in which no rose bush can pos- 

 sibly flourish. Drying the border in summer 

 time should never be practiced. More failures, 

 probably result from this than any other cause. 

 In the first place, you get no growth of wood to 

 succeed that which you have forced the life out 

 of the previous season ; for, in the fall when you 

 start your houses, your rose bushes have not a 

 root or leaf to make one, they have all dined up 

 for the Avant of water, the border and roots are 

 full of fungus ; then you commence to swelter 

 them by a high night's temperature and drench 

 them with lots of water, and you then wonder 

 what is the matter with your roses. You might 

 as well expect a man to live forever with con- 

 sumption, as for a rose bush to live and flourish 

 under such conditions. 



HOT WATER BOILERS. 



BY A SUBSCRIBER. 



I was much pleased with Mr. Poppey's re- 

 marks on heating greenhouses with hot water. 

 The paper has some merit if it does no more 

 than induce gardeners to acquire that knowledge 

 that we usually leave to the engineer or machi- 

 nist; but I thought he might have gone more 

 into details. He says that our modern boiler is 

 only a heater, and in this he ma}' be correct, 

 but I prefer the old name boiler. I am aware 

 that a boiler to generate steam has more surface 

 exposed to the action of fire than a greenhouse 

 boiler, or simply any hot water boiler, as the 

 one has room to store up steam, the other does 

 not require. lie says that 2,1.37 lbs. of coal are 

 used to put one cubic foot of water, at 32^'^ into 

 steam. I would wish all my houses were in 

 Guinea, or elsewhere, if I had to consume 1100 

 lbs. of fuel a day, even in the coldest weather, 



to a boiler that carries a little over SCO feet of 

 pipe, to keep the water boiling. I would require 

 to fill the pipes frequently, and find many leaky 

 joints next day. 



The house the above pipe is in is 30x64, about 

 twelve feet to the apex; keep the house from 

 G5° to over TO'*, and use about twenty tons Le- 

 high coal ^ season. I prefer to not have the 

 water leave the boiler at 180" and in most of the 

 time less. The boiler may be considered ser- 

 viceable if the water at furthest from the boiler 

 is 130° to 150°. Some two or three of the other 

 houses are larger and carry from 1,000 to 1,100 

 feet to give a heat of G0° ; they failed in ex- 

 treme cold weather, and I attached a small 

 boiler to two of them with about 500 feet of 

 pipe to each ; now they are safe and I consider 

 this season has nearly paid the extra cost. 



Now, we will examine the conical boiler that 

 has so small a surface exposed to the draft. It 

 appears when we look into the fire it heats the 

 Avater by absorption, and the only piece of iion 

 exposed in the draft is that lump of iron project- 

 ing to the center of the fire. It is the first boiler 

 we had in the United States that was really 

 serviceable. All the ncAV inventions that I 

 have seen are not as good as it, and so say 

 those who have several patterns. The only 

 objection is its cost. Many gardeners praise 

 their boilers the first season. Few of them 

 are to be relied on. The man who removes 

 the old brick flue, and replaces it with boiler 

 and pipe, goes into extacies over the change, 

 praises it, is only sorry he was so long troubled 

 with the abominable hot air ; now he has ample 

 heat with little care, no sulphur gas, no sitting 

 up on cold nights, gets the snow to melt on his 

 glass nearly as fast as it falls, etc. The second 

 winter a slight change takes place in his 

 thoughts. He is unable to procure the same 

 amount of heat by 4° or 5° as he had the pre- 

 vious winter. Should he lose as much heat 

 every succeeding season, it is not to be relied 

 on, or will be a hill of expense. This takes 

 place in every api^aratus where steam or water 

 is supplied as a medium for heating purposes, 

 and there is no way that I know of to avoid it. 

 Water when heated liberates some neutral salts 

 and alkaline earths, which are deposited on the 

 inside of the pipes, filling up all the interstices 

 in the iron, and reducing their radiating power 

 as stated above. The best preventative is to 

 make allowance when you put the apparatus 

 up. 



