84 



JOTTENAIi OP HOKTICULTXJKE AWD COTTAGE GAEDENXE. 



[ August 4, 1863. 



iheated at, all it must pass into the pipes soon, or before the 

 water in the boiler attains any great heat. 



Saddle boilers consume as much fuel as most, and heat a 

 comparatively sm;dl amount of piping ; and the chief merit 

 they have appeiu's to bo that they -vvtU stand any amount 

 of abvise, and iu-e not often out of order. There ai'e boUere 

 that -will do double the work of a saddle boiler with the 

 same quantity Of fuel, and the various modiiicationB of a 

 .saddle lioiler are as ineffective as the original. To notice 

 aU of them woidd take up more space than the boilers 

 themselves, and that is not little, and yet yield no prac- 

 tical matter. 



Of Horizontal Boilers, Thomson's retort is one of the 

 best ; Monro's cannon being a modification of the retort 

 principle. The former is not so comiDlicated as the latter, 

 therefore not so liable to get out of order. The retort ex- 

 iposes double the siu'face that a saddle boiler does to the 

 ■action of the fire, holds little water, heats quickly, consvimes 

 ■.any kind of fuel, and requii-es but little attention. The 

 icannon boiler is equally good, only being more complicated 

 it is more liable to get out of reptui' ; but then its compli- 

 cation is an advantage, for it is much more economical to 

 Teplace a part than the whole of a boUer. A leaky joint is 

 Boon stopjied, but who can stop up a crack in a clumsy mons- 

 trosity cast in one piece ? I consider complication so liu- an 

 advantage rather than a drawback. 



With a boder of many pai-ts there may be defects. I 

 admit there are, for it not iinfi'equently happens that one 

 part is not in unison with its neighljoiuing parts — a flaw 

 or a defect is there or results ; but how much easier is it to 

 put in a new part than remove the whole. 



Another merit of a horizontal boiler is that it takes less 

 room to set, and can be used in many places where an 

 upright lioiler coidd not be fixed ; yet, what with the soot 

 or dust, the heating powers ai'e considerably reduced and 

 the draiight is usually sluggish. 



I win not criticise all boilers, for some of them have 

 nothing to recommend them, and I have no doubt that any 

 serviceable old boiler excelled its contemporaries at some 

 time. A good thing to-day may be a very poor afiair to- 

 morrow, and a good boiler now may be a very bad one in 

 the next generation. 



Upright Tubular Boilers owe their origin to Mr. J. 

 Weeks. I cannot see any great diflerence between the 

 upright boUers of the various makers, and I would just as 

 Boon have one as another. Ormson's is a deviation from 

 that of Weeks, and is said to expose no joint to the direct 

 action of the fii-e. There may be merit in that ; but ex- 

 perience tells me that a joint will not leak an hoiu' sooner 

 by being exposed to the action of the fire than when not 

 exposed. 



One principle prevails in all tubiilaa- boUers, and the only 

 difference I can see in them is more teohiiical than important. 

 Weeks' improved tubular boiler is as good as any, though 

 I am a little jiartial to Clarke's upright with the water- 

 jacket at the bottom, which I consider a move in the right 

 direction. Boiler farnaoes heat too much brickwork ; but if 

 the water-jacket were made to enclose or confine the tire 

 the entu-e length of the boiler, oidy allowing a flue-hole at 

 the top, or two flue-holes if the boiler were large, and then 

 bringing the flue round the water-jacket on tlie outside, I 

 think very little heat indeed woidd be lost ; but, as it is, 

 fully one-half the heat is lost in the brickwork and in the 

 chimney. 



Everybody is acquainted with a tubular boiler, therefore 

 I need not describe one ; but I wiU treat of Weeks' improved 

 as being the one with which I ;un practically most acquainted. 

 Having the size No. 4, costing £20, in use, I have experience 

 of its working. 



Weeks' improved boiler has one four-inch flow and two 

 foiu'-inch return pipes, or apertures for pipes. The return- 

 pipes do not pass through any hot brickwork, therefore the 

 water comes into the grate-bars, which are hollow, and placed, 

 of coui'se, horizontally. At each end of the grate-bars is a 

 box-like pipe to which the pipes of the grate are connected, 

 and at the end opposite the furnace-door, where the retum- 

 Jiipes enter the boiler, is a six-inch aperture tlrrough wlueh 

 the heated water from the gi'ate-bars passes into the upper 

 j)art of the boiler, where there ai-e two eirculai- ring-like 

 ^lipes of a hexagon shape, against which the heat of the 



frre is mainly direoted. Into these circidar pipes round 

 pipes are fixed, and connected at top with a circular basin, 

 at the upper side of which the flow-pipe is situated. The 

 boHer proper is 3 feet G inches high, and with the grate- 

 bars about 5 feet high. It is about :i feet wide at bottom, 

 and tapers to about 2 feet at top. The grate-bars with 

 the end-junctions ai'e 3 feet 6 inches long, and they aie 

 placed so that the side pipes are 6 inches higher than 

 the centre pipes or grate-baa-s. 



There is not a part about this boiler on which the fire-does 

 not play, and, as a necessary consequence, the fidl heating 

 power of the fire is employed in heating tlie water it contains. 

 Owing to tlie parts being nan'ow and eirculai-, the surface 

 exposed is lai'ge ; for, unlike a saddle boder on which the 

 fire can only act on one side at once, in a tubular one all the 

 surface is simidtaneously exposed. Thus a .£20 saddle has 

 only some 25 feet of directly exjiosed surface, and the same 

 of indirect ; Ijut Weeks' improved ^20 tubidai- boiler has, 

 when in full going oi'der, over 100 feet of directly exposed 

 sui-faee, and no indii-eot of any moment ; but at times, when 

 the gi'ate-bars are covered with ash, and the feeding cavity 

 full, a certain amount of indirect surface presents it.self. On 

 the other hand, we do not allow anything for the under side 

 of the gTate-bars, though boiler-makers genernlly include 

 them in their calcidation. I consider that a tubular boileir 

 having 150 feet of exposed surface will have at all times on 

 an average — making allowance for the accumulation of.aah on 

 the grate and the coke in the feeding cavity-^70 feet of 

 direct and 30 feet of indirect surface exposed to tlie action 

 of the fii'e, and tliis gives 70 by 50 = 3500 gallons of boiling 

 water, to which we add the 30 feet of indirect surface 

 30 by 10 = 300 -f 3500 = 3800 gallons of water as the heating 

 capabilities of the boiler. But this is more by 50 gaUoms 

 than Messrs. Weeks calculate their boiler to heat. Well, 

 but one of my neighbours has a No. 3 boiler of Wedks' 

 heating 800 feet of four-inch pipe, whereas it is ojdy calcu- 

 lated to heat 600 feet. The boiler, however, in severe 

 weather has to be jrashed, and tubiUai's never ought to be 

 overworked. Mine, on the other hand, has only some 

 1200 feet of piping attached to it, one-tliii'd of which is 

 Ij-rncli, and this enables me to fii-e easily and the boiler to 

 play with its work. 



In the severest weather I can have boiUng water in the 

 pipes in an hour after lighting the fii-e ; and now I can run 

 water round a vinery or any house in ten minutes by 

 merely turning a valve, whereas had I nothing but a saddle 

 boiler the fire woidd be to stoker or light, and if boi lin g 

 water were had in a couple of houi-s I shoidd think myself 

 weU ofi'. All I have to do is to clean the boiler in the 

 morning, or rather the fui-nace, and feed it. This takes np 

 about half an hoiu-, for I like to leave all about a boder as 

 tidy as a well-swept parlour, and not have ashes in a comer 

 of the fire-hole, and coke thrown about everjTvhere. The 

 draught is left open untd the houses are attended to, or say 

 half an hoiu', and then closed entu-ely, and no one can find 

 the flue more tlian warm after that; but the fire bums, 

 keeps the pipes hot until six o'clock in the evening, when 

 the fii-e is made up for the night, occupying about ten 

 mhiutes, and I rarely see it again untd moruiug in mild 

 weather. But in severe weather, when I have all the 

 houses going, I give about half an iucli of draught in the 

 moi-ning until 1 p.m., when the fire ia ralved, more coke 

 added it' necessary, and the draught reduced to nothing. 

 At P.M. the fumace is again raked, rehlled with coke, the 

 di-aught-door opened about a quaiter of an inch if the night 

 is likely to be severe, or shut if Ukely to be mild. The 

 boiler wants no fmther attendance until morning unless a 

 sharp frost occurs, when a little more di-aught is given 

 before going to bed, and then we can sleep with a conviction 

 on our minds that om- charge is as comfortable as ourselves. 

 Compare a saddle boder to" a tubular, and deal practically 

 with both, and we shall find a vast disparity between them. 

 One does as much more work as the other with the same 

 quantity of fuel, and in other words saves the projirietor's 

 ■pocket,' and contributes largely to the gardener's ease of 

 mind and body. I hold that anything and evei-ything in a 

 garden is or ought to be fixed on that principle ; and I 

 consider that if a gardener can save Ids master's pocket by 

 an increased outlay, that it is better than letting money lie 

 dormant. Although a, tubular boiler conforms to evei-y 



