234 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[August, 



the better will be the flow. But to return to the 

 upright pipe. At about one foot below the bottom 

 level of the supply tank', in this pipe let there be 

 inserted a tee, to which the main is attached, 

 dropped from that point as may be necessary or 

 desirable. The air as it rises from the boiler will 

 float to the surface of the water in the upright pipe 

 and escape, and the water will pass off at the side 

 outlet comparatively free of air. 



Last summer one of our florist firms in town made 

 an addition to their establishment by building two 

 more houses, each 10x95 ^^^^' ^"^ heated by a 

 4-inch flow and return pipe on each side of each 

 house. Previous to that, the two small boilers 

 which heat the range seemed to be taxed to their 

 utmost to furnish the necessary heat. It was, how- 

 ever, decided, by way of experiment, to attach to 

 them the additional 800 feet laid on the "down-hill 

 plan." The old pipes are on the old plan. No 

 particular attention was paid to having them at 

 any point on a level with any of the other pipes. 

 The experiment proved much more successful than 

 was ever anticipated. The whole system of pipes 

 now work admirably, all heating simultaneously 

 and evenly, and yet the boilers are not overtaxed. 

 I am confident had those pipes been laid on the old 

 plan, no such satisfactory result would have fol- 

 lowed. 



But, .Mr. Editor, I have already occupied too 

 much of your time ; I hope you will excuse me. 

 The subject is one I am fond of talking about, and 

 it is possible 1 exceed the bounds of patience. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Rose Triomphe d'Angers.— At a recent meet- 

 ing of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Mr. 

 Strong said that there is no rose so free flowering 

 as the Triomphe d'Angers, or that would be so sat- 

 isfactory to the public. He cultivates it as a sub- 

 stitute for General Jacqueminot. It is not an ex- 

 hibition rose. 



Begonia D.wisii.— Messrs. James Veitch & 

 Son, Chelsea, England, write that the credit of the 

 introduction of Begonia Davisii, which was given 

 to Messrs. Haage & Schmidt in our May number, 

 really belongs to them. It was introduced, they 

 say, by them through the collector, whose name it 

 bears, nearly ten years ago. 



Origin of Modern F\\shionable Floral 

 Decorations.— The English Cour/ Jot^rna/says: 

 "To trace the advent of these elaborate decora- 



tions we must go back some fourteen years, when 

 Sir Edward Scott had the first grand floral ball at 

 his mansion in Grosvenor Square. The order to a 

 well-known florist was that he (Sir Edward) wished 

 his to be the handsomest ball of the season, and 

 that he would place his house in the hands of the 

 florist for three days to do as he hked, regardless 

 of expense. The decorations caused a perfect 

 fic}-ore\ and it .was the means of entirely revolu- 

 tionizing the style of artistic decoration not only in 

 London, but in every part of the United Kingdom, 

 and, indeed, the whole of Europe and America. 

 What Sir Edward did then to gratify and please 

 his friends for a few hours has been a lasting and 

 continuaily increasing incentive to the cultivation 

 of flowers, and a great benefit to many thousands 

 of his fellow creatures. It was the great incentive 

 to the cultivation of flowers — a source of pleasure 

 which conveyed a gleam of sunshine into miUions 

 of homes, and which has enabled many thousands 

 to earn an honest living, creating within them- 

 selves a better life, and diffusing its beneficent in- 

 fluence o'er all around." 



Popular Love of Flowers. — A London paper 

 says that " any one who can remember the homes 

 of the poor in London fifteen or twenty years ago 

 in our back streets and slums will bear us out in 

 saying that scarcely a flower-pot was seen in their 

 rooms or on their window-ledges outside. At the 

 perioc. in which we write you can scarcely go 

 through a street and find a window without some 

 plants in it, either outside or in. This lact being 

 recognized, we come to the natural conclusion that 

 the taste for flowers has increased more than ten 

 thousand fold during the last twelve or fourteen 

 years, and that consequently horticultural and 

 floricultui'al knowledge has infused into the mind 

 of the people generally a greater love for flowers, 

 thereby improving their tastes and tending to make 

 their homes happier. Then we have to look at the 

 effect of a love for flowers from a commercial point 

 of view. Twelve years ago the number of growers 

 who attended Covent Garden Market could be 

 counted by the number of fingers on our hands. 

 Now they are to be counted by hundreds, and the 

 people employed in the production of flowers by 

 many thousands." 



Dipladenia carissima. — It is gratifying to 

 note that amidst the rage for foliage plants those 

 with handsome flowers are not forgotten. The 

 tribe of Apocynacese gives us many beautiful plants, 

 usually with sweet, waxy flowers, of which the 

 Stephanotis and Rhyncospermum jasminoides are 



