1885.1 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



267 



power to resist disease. The Verbena is too beau- 

 tiful and too useful a plant to be permitted to sink 

 to oblivion without an eiTort to save it. — Ed.G.M.] 



STEAM HEATING A SUCCESS. 

 BV N. B. STOVER. 



I have carefully read and studied every article 

 contributed to your valuable journal in favor and 



against steam heating but have not found in 

 article anything that compares with the heating 

 of E. Hippard's establishment in Youngstown, 

 Ohio. Of this establishment I am foreman and 

 can truthfully testify to the merits of steam. 



For the benefit of your numerous readers I 

 deem it my duty as a florist to learn and teach all 

 I know. The above named place is one of the 

 best built and arranged commercial greenhouse 

 establishments I have ever seen, covering upwards 

 of 12,000 square feet of glass. The boiler used to 

 heat this amount of glass and work-shop, also a 

 dwelling house of thirteen rooms and large hall 

 (every room is heated), is a small 15-horse power 

 locomotive style Taft boiler ; the piping consists 

 of over four thousand lineal feet of two-inch gas 

 pipe and nine large radiators, costing for the past 

 very cold winter only a trifle over ggo. The at- 

 tention required for firing was not much. In the 

 coldest weather when the mercury would go to 

 18° and 20° below zero I would not lose two 

 hours' sleep in such a night. The pressure was 

 never over five pounds of steam, and in ordinary 

 weather from one to two pounds were plenty. 



The boiler is set eight feet below the surface of 

 greenhouse floors, and so arranged as to cause all 

 condensed steam to run back to boiler without a 

 steam trap, only by grading the pipe to a continu- 

 ous degree of two to four inches in one hundred 

 lineal feet. The boiler needs water about every 

 six or ten days, and certainly could never fall so 

 low as to cause any danger by burning crown 

 sheets or flues. By a novel and very useful in- 

 vention gotten up by Mr. Hippard I can without 

 any fear of oversleeping myself lay down and 

 sleep with perfect confidence ; the arrangement is 

 feo constructed as to call by a bell when the heat 

 goes down or up to a certain degree we set it. 



Youngstown, Ohio. 



Feb. No., page 39. The tenor of all is, that Mr. 

 Veitch has not given the proportions. But we do 

 not think any exact proportioning of parts is neces- 

 sary. He says ; " My remedy consists of sulphur 

 and linseed oil, mixed to the consistency of paint, 

 and brushed on the flues or hot-water pipes." 



Of course there is such a thing as thick paint 

 and thin paint, but it will make little difference 

 here. We have watched the application of this 

 one \ remedy, and think the chief virtue of the oil is that 

 it keeps the sulphur in place on the pipes. Sul- 

 phur would naturally roll off a round pipe. When 

 in the oil it has to stay where it is put. There 

 may be some other use for the oil, but this 

 certainly is one. Whether more or less is used 

 can make but little difference. 



Flowering of the Night-blooming Cereus. 

 —Mr. E. S. Miller, Wading River, N. Y., writes: 

 " Seeing your note on the flowering of C. Mac- 

 donaldii in Kansas and Virginia about the same 



j date, June 6th, I thought it of interest to note that 

 mine was flowering in another section of the coun- 



' try. Two flowers opened on the 9th of June, two- 

 on the loth, one on the nth, and others about a 

 week later. Some of the flowers remained fully 

 expanded until the following day as late as 8 or 9 

 o'clock, though these did not open till evening, 

 while those which closed early, opened early, 

 before dark." 



[Singularly enough, a plant of the Night-bloom- 

 1 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



ing Cereus that had already bloomed in June, un- 

 der the observation of the writer, had another 

 flower open on the 4th of August. — Ed. G. M.] 



Begonia Feastii.— Mrs. E. Bonner, Xenia, 0., 

 says: " In the Gardeners' Monthly for August, 

 you refer to the death of a florist friend, Mr. John 

 Feast, of Baltimore. 



" Among the plants mentioned as having origi- 

 nated at the Feast greenhouses, and bearing the 

 name, is Begonia Feastii. We have had for 

 some years a Begonia that we catalogued under 

 that name, but we have never felt sure that we were 

 right. Will send a plant to know if we have the 

 true Feastii. It is an old plant, and very easy of 

 cultivation, yet we rank it among the best in our 

 collection. It certainly is very beautiful, with its 

 shining, olive green leaves, "veined nearly white," 

 under side crimson. It is a profuse bloomer in 

 the latter part of winter and early spring ; flowers, 

 a very delicate pink color. I hope we are correct 

 in the name, for we love the Begonia, and the his- 



Linseed Oil and Sulphur as a Cure for 

 Rose Mildew.— We have a number of inquiries i tory you have given of it will enhance its value, 

 in regard to Mr. Veitch's remedy for mildew, in 



' If we are mistaken in the name of the plant we 



