1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



East who are the most successful in growing 

 plants and flowers, growing them without steam 

 heat, as well as we do with it. Our city takes the 

 lead in steam heating, having six large establish- 

 ments all heated by steam, but nothing extraordi- 

 nary is produced in the way of growing cut flowers, 

 as all the fine flowers that are used in our city and 

 and as far west as Chicago, are shipped from the 

 East. 



Our plant house consists of 30,000 ft. of glass, 

 heated by one boiler of about 25 horse-power, and 

 to heat this extent of glass it requires over 6000 ft. 

 of 2-inch pipe, which to heat by low pressure of 

 steam as some advocate, is ridiculous, we using 

 as high as 50 lbs. of steam with all the valves 

 open, to keep near the desired temperature in cold 

 weather. But if the valves were all shut off from 

 the boiler the steam guage would indicate about 

 100 lbs. which is decidedly not low pressure, and 

 to use 4-inch cast iron pipes that are used for hot 

 water heating with any or near such pressure, 

 would be rather dangerous, as we had two or 

 three bursts with our pipes of 2-incb. Some assert 

 that houses situated two or three hundred feet 

 from the boiler are as easily heated as those near 

 it, which I will show of my own experience does 

 not prove so, as we have some of our houses 

 200 ft. from the boiler and some not 10 ft. 

 which are kept at 65° or 75° with almost any 

 pressure of steam, and those 200 ft. away want 

 about 10 lbs. steam until they get to 65° for there 

 is naturally more condensation, than near the 

 boiler, where we have live steam at all times. 



In regard to saving fuel, I will give an idea 

 what we use throughout a season, and then let 

 others judge for themselves whether there is a 

 saving of one-half or one-third, which I doubt 

 very much. We use between 9,000 and 10,000 

 bushels of coal each season, aggregating about 

 350 tons, at a cost of between ;f4oo and $500 ; but 

 as we haul all our own coal we save very nearly 

 that amount, which would make the total cost 

 of fuel delivered on place about $800 per season. 

 At the same time bear in mind that we are in the 

 coal region and have comparatively cheap fuel, as 

 our prices range from two cents to six or seven 

 cents from the lowest to best quality of coal. 

 Summing up our coal bill for last January it 

 amounted to ^73.00. It must also be understood 

 that it takes a much greater fire to generate steam, 

 than it does to heat water or flues, and as soon as 

 your steam goes down, the pipes get cold, whereas 

 by hot water or flue heating they remain warm 

 for a long time, and for that reason it requires 



close attention to have complete control of tem- 

 perature by steam heating; for you have, say 15 

 lbs. steam on the guage and have the houses at 

 the desired temperature and then the fire may be 

 forgotten, as is often the case, the steam goes 

 down and the houses get colder in less than one 

 hour. There is no doubt at all that steam heating 

 takes more attention than any other system, espec- 

 ially if an even temperature is desired, as our fire 

 must be looked after every fifteen minutes in cold 

 weather to keep up steam, and consequently there 

 must be a competent and reliable man to take 

 charge of the firing all night, another ex- 

 pense of no little importance, as we keep our fire- 

 man from October till the end of May at a ^salary 

 of $9.00 per week. Some parties tried to fire with 

 their greenhouse hands, and had them work one-half 

 day and fire at night, but they had to give it up, 

 as it is impossible for a man to do that for any 

 length of time ; for to fire all night is, as I have 

 experienced, much harder work than any of the 

 greenhouse hands' day labor. I would rather 

 work two full days than fire one night. I will 

 admit that all large concerns heated by hot water 

 or flues, need a man all night to look after the 

 many fires, but for places of 15,000 ft. of glass or 

 little more, it is not necessary ; but with steam 

 heating you may depend on it that it is impossible 

 to do without one. 



A great mistake with some florists is to have 

 only one boiler, for if anything should happen to 

 it, they would be left at the mercy of Jack Frost, 

 and would probably lose their whole stock, as it 

 takes considerable time to make repairs, and while 

 making them you can't have any steam to heat. I 

 don't want to intimidate any one as concerns 

 danger, but at the same time I wish to say that 

 something might happen, and if you have only 

 one boiler, as we had the first year we started, you 

 may be tried severely as we were ; in fact once I 

 gave up all hopes, for the temperature in the 

 houses got near 32°, but we overcame the difficulty 

 in time to prevent any further trouble. Now we 

 have two boilers and if the one should "blow up" 

 and there is anything left of the other one, we 

 fire in it at once, but there is not much danger of 

 bursting as long as you have reliable men to fire ; 

 even hot water boilers will burst ; Mr. P. Hen- 

 derson told me of two boilers which he had blown 

 up at one time by careless handling. 



In April's issue of the Gardeners' Monthly, 

 a florist from Philadelphia, estimates for a house 

 of 22x115 ft., 1000 ft. of I '4 -inch pipe; now we 

 have in three of our houses 22x130 It., 1000 ft. of 



