December 15, 1917 



HORTICULTURE 



617 



COAL SAVING IN CARNATION HOUSES 



The very interesting letter from 

 Secretary John Young to W. F. Gude, 

 as also his able qualifications of the 

 same must certainly have brought 

 home to all the florists in the land 

 the seriousness of the present coal 

 situation. There are probably tew 

 things more apt to take the spunk out 

 of a florist than to have to imagine 

 what a fix he would be in if coal 

 should behave as sugar did for the 

 last few weeks, and is doing yet — • 

 none to be had for love nor money. 

 It gives me the delicious triangles 

 now just thinking of it. Still I shall 

 hope and keep on hoping with my 

 brother florists for a happy solution 

 and ending of this nightmare, as It 

 Is, it might pay to look a little deeper 

 into the matter and to see if we may 

 not benefit somewhat through force of 

 necessity. 



The latter part of the well written 

 editorial in Horticultuke on "The 

 fuel outlook," page 594, Dec. 8, touches 

 the real spot and as the editorial 

 tersely says: a big saving in the 

 amount of fuel used could be made by 

 Intelligent study of heating in relation 

 to the growing of crops. Most of us 

 take too much for granted, when it 

 comes to watching the firing temper- 

 ature in the houses and temperatures 

 really needed tor the growing of the 

 crops. Only those who unfortunately 

 may be obliged, either once in a while 

 or for the whole winter season, to 

 tend to the fires personally, can really 

 know what happens to the coal pile 

 every day and mostly every night. 

 Why will one fireman use a ton or 

 two less of coal per week and have the 

 temperature nearer to the desired 

 mark than the other man? Sure we 

 know, anybody knows; he throws 

 more coal into the boiler." Yes, but 

 why does he do it? Just because on 

 many places, he is not properly under 

 control and we pleasantly let him tell 

 us some fake story about "last night 

 was a bad one" whenever he feels like 

 It. Do we see that the fires are 

 cleaned and kept bright as needed? 

 Many of us never go near a fire after 

 the night man comes on and he soon 

 considers himself a very important 

 article, not inclined to take kindly to 

 ■ a deserved admonition or a well meant 

 warning or doubt. He gets Into a rut 

 and does as he pleases until some nice 

 morning HE gets fired. And the 

 funny part of it, on places where the 

 men get fired promptly and often, the 

 worst firing is generally going on. 



Discharging a fireman at short order 

 and for little cause and then hiring 

 another victim is poor policy and too 

 often done. I have come to the con- 

 clusion that it costs the firm some 

 good money to make such changes 

 and breaking in new men. 



Instruct the fireman properly as to 

 how you want the flres tended. (Ab- 

 solutely do not let him tell you he 

 knows all about it.) Offer a decent 

 wage so a decent man will look for 

 the job. Only bums take bum wages. 

 Tell the man after he has proved to 

 be what you think he ought to be that 

 you think well of his work and that if 

 no complaints are made or needed 

 after this a bonus of 50c. or $1.00 a 

 week is his and will be withheld in 

 case of complaint. That fireman will 

 begin to look at his job in a different 

 light and you can do with him almost 

 anything. He will now take advice 

 from you if you can prove that what 

 you say is so but make sure you your- 

 self know what you are talking about. 



Now supposing we have a good fire- 

 man and good coal, then we should 

 get good heating without waste in the 

 boiler room. On a place using under 

 "happy-go-lucky" conditions — say 100 

 tons of coal — the real fireman will cut 

 it down 10-15 tons and that can be 

 easy beaten, still it is real saving. 

 But of what use is good firing and 

 saving coal in the fire room if we have 

 the waste going on in the houses? 

 Tell me. 



Let us take carnations. I have 

 noticed places where for years never 

 a decent stem or flower was produced, 

 for the simple reason that the 25c. 

 thermometers registered wrong. The 

 fireman was told, "now be sure to 

 keep the house at 50 and no more." 

 He did, by that thermometer, keep It 

 to the mark, but that particular ther- 

 mometer would not tell him once that 

 it was fooling him and needed 55° 

 In reality before it could climb into 

 the 50 class. Now who was wasting 

 coal? Not the tliermometer, not the 

 fireman, but that fool boss who never 

 for a moment had a notion that the 

 glass could be wrong. After having 

 been told, he bought other thermome- 

 ters, tested them and from that day 

 on saves coal and raises good carna- 

 tions. There are tons and tons of 

 coal wasted now every day in this 

 way. But now supposing you have a 

 good man and a good glass. (I do not 



allude to .) Still there is plenty 



chance to waste or save coal and flow- 



ers. The glass will not fool you but 

 the man may, even if he is an excel- 

 lent man at the Are and never wastes 

 a pound of the black diamonds. He 

 is, may be, not particular about the 

 degrees in the houses; he has a good, 

 carefully tended fire all night but un- 

 less you have a silent watchman In 

 each of your houses how can you prove 

 what the man tells you? I for my 

 part would never believe one single 

 word even under oath. But put a self- 

 registering apparatus into the house, 

 absolutely safe from Interference with 

 it and covered, so that the fireman 

 can not see what it registers and you 

 have him sure. 



A registering clock, such as are ad- 

 vertised, is the best thing of course. 

 The high and low glass will answer 

 all purposes though and is much 

 cheaper and will never get out of 

 order. How often will a fireman (who 

 is a good flreman) get the house too 

 hot while you sleep? It took coal to 

 get It too hot; he opens the ventila- 

 tors a while, out goes your coal and 

 you dream and dream on and in the 

 morning ask John, "how were the 

 houses," "Fine, boss, fine." Then you 

 ask that little up and down tell-tale, 

 but now don't rip him up the back; 

 tell him just how high or low it was 

 and you will soon cure Mr. Fireman. 

 Educate him by degrees. 



So far, so good. We will now inves- 

 tigate, whether by keeping the flre 

 good and the degrees in the houses 

 just where we want them, there might 

 not be a hole yet, where the coal gets 

 away from us. The rule nowadays 

 with carnations is to keep the plants 

 at 48-52 at night and I do not feel like 

 saying this to be wrong, one way or 

 the other, because success with carna- 

 tions kept at either 48 or 52° calls for 

 attention to a number of other details 

 outside of temperature, but closely 

 connected with it. We all know that 

 plants can he kept cooler without 

 harm if on the dry side, still they will 

 not enjoy the dry side for long and do 

 well. Yet we wish to reduce the 

 amount of coal used and I hold that 

 if we gradually introduce our carna- 

 tions to a longer spell of low temper- 

 ature and even then for a short time, 

 say 3-4 hours to a still lower degree, 

 we will only not hurt the plants or 

 flowers, but we will surely and decid- 

 edly improve them; unless the thing 

 Is carried too far. Running the car- 

 nation liouses at 52 at night, say from 

 10-7, and then increasing the temper- 

 ature will give us a lot of flowers. 



