466 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ I>ocembor 19, 1BG7. 



our stove nearly below the floor level. We merely, therefore, made a dry 

 cesspool with Itricks round our short horizontal pipe, placed two pieces 

 of iion across for oar nine-foot length of pipe to stand on, and brick-and- 

 plastered it up; and by removing a brick or two we can clean at any 

 time, or take down the pipe and clean it. We kept the late frost out of K 

 house with this stove, although the house is fully seven times the size of 

 yours. Such stoves do best with coke well broken, or nice clean 

 cinders, with a few nodules of coals to lipht. When a fire is needed only 

 now and then the furnace should be carefully cleaned out with the hand, 

 and if the ashes are very dry damp them a little. When a fire in severe 

 weather is wanted continuously and clinkers may accumulate, it will be 

 desirable to let the fire fall low", and then pour in cold water to cool it, 

 shutting the door that the steam may go up the chimney before cleanintj 

 and relighting. When fnirly set going, by leaving the ashpit door open, 

 you must regulate draught by the openings left there. We find that a 

 long and slov.- combustion that keeps the most of the heat about the 

 stove is then kept up by an opening an inch long and a quai-ter of an 

 inch wide. As to other modes, such as putting a boiler in a shed at the 

 end of agreenhouse— if, as you say, you must study economy, we would 

 advise giving a fair tviid to the stovo'first, as hot water is always expen- 

 sive for such small places. You say you cannot have a flue, though with 

 that shed at the end of the greenhouse it would surely be as easv to have 

 a flue as a boiler; and if the levels would admit of it, a five-iiieh-wide 

 flue nnder the floor, the tiles that conceal it forming thepath, would be 

 a very simple, efl'ectual, and neat mode of heating the house, and you 

 would always have a comfortable path in winter. If resolved on hot 

 water, a small conical or saddle-back boiler will suit you, and then three 

 three-inch pipes, as you propose beneath your stage, would be ample. 

 Before we resorted to it, and if we wished to escape all dirt and additional 

 expense and to use what we had, we would knock out a part of that shed 

 wall, shorten the horizontal pipe of the stove, place the stove in the open- 

 ing, surround it with a chamber, leaving onlv access to the feeding place 

 and the ashpit door, and thus let the heat without the dust into the 

 house. On the opening opposite the stove in the house we would fasten 

 a piece of tin or plate iron with a lour-inch-wide opening at the top and 

 the same at bottom, and we should be surprisedif the heat from the stove 

 did not difl'use itself over the house. Let us hear, and you will have our 

 best attention. 



Heating a Pit {Man 0/ Kent). —For efliciency and economy combined, 

 you could scarcely have done better than have adopted the plan recom- 

 mended to a correspondent on the 2;^rd of May, to which you refer, and have 

 done all your heating by a flue in such a small i)lace as a pit with four 

 lights, and in the way there stated. Ev having more openings from the 

 chamber you couhl easily regulate the heat to the plants on floor or stage, 

 and yon would have be^n troubled with no steam, &c. As you have made 

 the pit 5 feet deep, and have bricked trenches on each side for linings, and 

 hot-water pipes for top heat, we can have no objection whatever to the 

 arrangement, only it seems a round-about way of efi'ec ting the object; 

 but it will be a good one for obtaining a supply of rotten manure. 

 If your simple hot-water apparatus cost you little, all well ; but we never 

 like to recommend hot water for small places, as so much heat is lost up 

 the chimney. You might have taken vour flow pipes round vour pit for 

 top heat, and returned them beneath the bed for bottom heat, and thus 

 dispensed with fermenting material ; but, if you hke the fermenting 

 material, it is all right. We would not, however, have had the pipes so 

 near the glass in front. Your moveable frame to use in training Cucum- 

 bers, Ac., is all right enough, and also the frame for the plants to stand in. 

 These, though near the glass, will not be subject to injury from sudden 

 frosts, owing to the air beneath them. We do not quite understand how 

 your one-inch piping is made into a coil and fixed into brickwork, we 

 presume to be acted on by the furnace fuel; but your taking this one- 

 inch coil pipe into the pit and connecting it with two-inch pipe is all right 

 enough, and so is your twelve-gallon cistern supplying the coil air pipe 

 for heating pipes ; but it maybe as well to have the cistern eounected 

 with the bottom of the coil, and the return heating pipe to be fixed to the 

 coil at its lowest point. You seem to be .able to obtain ixuite enough of 

 heat ; from ^5*' to OQ- is quite sufficient for your plants, and 10- lower 

 would be bet*er than higher in cold weather. You may place the late- 

 inserted cuttings in the warmest end. Y'ou must make very sure of your 

 air-escape pipe, and let it go entirely out of the house or pit at an eleva- 

 tion of a couple of feet higher than vour supply cistern ; and to keep it 

 clean it is well to bend down the poiiit. The boiling of the supply cis- 

 tern, the hissing and spitting in the pipes, are the consequences of 

 having too much fire at the time for such a small place. In such cu'cum- 

 stances the water in the coil is apt to be turned into steam, and this, if it 

 do nothing else, will cause an overflow in the pipes and cistern. When 

 you become used to it you will find that, after the requisite heat is secured, 

 httle fire heat will bo needed to keep it up. We think what we have said 

 of the coil and cistern, and especially to guard against a fierce fire, will 

 remove danger and difficulty ; but unless due care is exercised there is 

 danger with small coils in such small places. Of course your air pipe is 

 at the highest point. We do not like the idea of your Calceolarias stand- 

 ing on the tile floor, 5 feet from the glass. Give them in preference a 

 cool bottom by standing them on moss or ashes near the glass. 



Managing a Fire (J. L. L.).—Wc would have been able to assist 

 you better as to lighting and managing your fire, if you had told us 

 wnat kind of fire you used. As you allude to the mode of lighting a 

 stove, mentioned in " Greenhouses for the Many," wo think vou had 

 better refer to Mr. Carman, of Newgate Street. London, who supplied the 

 stove, fuel, &c. From the context we learn, or suppose, that the stove was 

 a flueless or chimneyless one, had a moveable fireplace that could be 

 lifted out of the stove, and that the stove was carried out of the house 

 to be cleaned, lighted, and set burning well, and only lifted in when the 

 heat was well up. Even then, the writer says, there was an unpleasant 

 smeU, though the stove chiefly acted as a reservoir of heat, just as a large 

 earthenware or iron bottle filled with hot water would do, until the water 

 slowly cooled and the bottle wanted refilling. We are well aware 

 that the manager of the kitchen fire likes no interference with her domain 

 m respect to taking away five to light stoves or fines, &c. We have 

 repeatedly stated, that we look on all such chimuevless stoves with pre- 

 pared fuel as mere makeshifts, and though useful at times, and especially 

 in airy places, we do not like to recommend, in general, stoves that 

 require prep;ired fuel, and that have no outlet for the products of com- 

 bustion. If you have such a stove, as alluded to by you, you can easily 

 light it out of the house without troubling the housefolk, by using a Uttle 

 dry straw and shavings, dry wood, and a few small pieces of coal, and 



when that is coked and bright, add the prepared fuel. We would, how- 

 ever, greatly prefer a stove with a nipe-chimney. and then we would use 

 a little straw, shavings, or paper, and fine-split dry wood for lighting it, 

 add a few pieces of dry coal, and when burning weD, put on broken coke or 

 clean cinders. There need be no difficulty in the matter. A small shovel- 

 ful of bright red coals from a fireplace might save a few minutes in 

 waiting; but, then, the carrying even that into your house smoking 

 does no good, and, therefore, lighting the fire at once will often be 

 the best. Sec other answers about stoves and heating this day. 



Daisies on a Laivn (M. B.). — Your lawn will not be injured by uproot- 

 ing the Daisies at this time of the year. 



Crab Tkee Unfruitful (ficotn^). — The causes of a fruit tree blooming 

 profusely, but yielding no fruit, are too many for us to be able to decide 

 v.-ithout data on any particular instance. The pistils or the stamens may 

 be defective ; the tree mav bo overshadowed, or it may be overluxuriant, 

 ice. 



Botanical Nasies (E. J.).— Campanula and Wahlenbergia hederacea 

 are identical. We know of no other name for the genus Aetrantia ; but 

 one of its species is now called Dondia epipactis, and another Pozoa 

 coriacea. Wo have no other specific name for Medicago aativa. A variety 

 of M. falcata was called M. aativa, with pale blue flowers. 



Pond Making {De Foir). — The making of a pond is, as to form, en- 

 tirely a matter of taste. All that we can assist you in is making it water- 

 tight. You will first of all excavate for the pond. It is unnecessary 

 to cart away the soil coming out, as you may throw it up in the form of 

 a mound, or make two or more of it, and if you wish to introduce rock- 

 work the mound will assist you. Having excavated the site, making a 

 hollow of 1 foot, and G feet in the deepest part, bearing in mind that the 

 water will have a plane surface, consequently the soil must be placed in 

 the hollows all around, so as to retain the water to the depth required, 

 you ought to procure a quantity of good stifi' clay. Lay it on in thin 

 layers to the thickness of not less than 1 foot, ramming it firmly. You 

 will find full particulars for the construction of ornamental sheets of 

 water and the plants suitable for these iu vol. v., New Series, pages 225, 

 2-t7. 251, 312, and 330. 



Berberry Hedge (fi. B.). — The common Rerbeny is most expeditiously 

 raised from seed, which may be sown in beds in sandy soil during March 

 or April, covering about half an inch deep with iino soil. By autumn 

 the seedlings will be tit to transjilant, and should then be planted out iu 

 beds, allowing 6 inches between the rows, and 3 inches from plant to 

 plant in the row. By the following autumn the plants will be fit to plant 

 out, or if left another year they will be strong. We are not aware that 

 it can be readily propagated from cuttings. \ou may obtain two or three 

 years' seedlings from most nurseries, and plant the hedge at once. The 

 plants should bo about 1 foot apart. 



CoLEU-s Verschafpelti Damping (C. H. itf.).— Your plants of this 

 Coleus would have been all the better if they had not been left out so 

 long, or, indeed, been placed out at all after they had become rooted. 

 Had you potted them off singly in small pots, and given them as much 

 heat when you had them starving out of doors as you are now giving 

 them, you would have had a very difi'erent result. We can only advise 

 you to continue them where they are, and keep them gently growing 

 during the winter, being careful not to give more water than is sufficient 

 to keep the foliage fresh. Avoid wetting the leaves, and maintain a tem- 

 perature of from 55° to B^-. 



Culture of Coleus Verschafpelti marmorata {Cambridgeshire). — 

 We apprehend your plants had, prior to your receiving them, been grown 

 in a much higher temperature than that you are aflording them, and 

 they have consequently received a check from the cold occasioned by 

 the journey, as they no doubt were young plants fresh from the propa- 

 gating-house, or but recently repotted, therefore kept in heat. Your 

 only plan will be to give them no more water than is sufficient to keep 

 the foliage from flagging, and to afford them all the heat you can. They 

 are sufltriug from cfdd. The temperature you name should be that of 

 the night instead of day, and the only remedy is to aflbrd more heat, or 

 a temperature of from 55" to Gt>- at night, and C5~^ by day, giving water 

 sparingly; but we fear the plants are beyond recovery. 



Heating a Tank and Small House {Idem). — The best and surest 

 boiler for your purpose would be a saddle boiler, which, upon your send- 

 ing particulars of the size of the tank and length and width of house to 

 be heated, any horticultural builder could fmnish you with. It would be 

 necessaiy to name the number of feet of piping, or the temperature 

 desired, just as you reiiuirc the house for a stove, greenhouse, or propa- 

 gating house. 



Chinese Primulas to FLO''.\'Eit at Citristmas {Eve). — To have these 

 iu flower at Christmas the seeds should be sown in March or April, in 

 pots or pans, in a compost of equal parts of light turfy loam, sandy peat, 

 and leaf mould, adding about one-sixth of silver sand. The pot or pan 

 maybe half filled with the siftiugs of the compost, the pan I)eing well- 

 drained, and then fill it to the rim, or to within a trifle of it, with finely 

 sifted soil. Level the surface and scatter the seeds rather thinly, cover- 

 ing lightly with fine soil. Give a gentle watering, and place the pots in 

 a mild hotbed and near the glass, being careful not to overwater, and yet 

 to keep the soil moist. When the plants are up admit air, continuing 

 them in the hotbed until they have made two or three rough leaves ; then 

 harden them off andaemove to a greenhouse, and when thoroughly hard- 

 cued pot them off singly iu smail pots in the same compost as that 

 used when sowing the seeds After potting place them in a cold frame, 

 shading for a few days, and keeping close until they recover the potting, 

 after which give abundance of air, and keep well 'supplied with water. 

 When the pots are filled with roots shift the plants intoi^ots a size larger, 

 and continue them in the frame. When the pots are again full of roots, 

 the plants should be placed iu their blooming pots, which maybe Cinches 

 in diameter. It is necessary to have the pots weU drained, and the com- 

 post somewhat rougher than it was previously, merely chopping it and 

 making it tolerably fine i\'ith a spade. The compost may cousist of two- 

 thirds turfy light loam, and one-third leaf mould, and to this may be 

 added one-sixth each of pieces of sandstone about the size of a hazel 

 nut, charcoal of the same size, and silver sand. The plants should be 

 again placed in the frame, and continued there until October, affording 

 them copious waterings and abundant ventilation, Tvith protection from 

 heavj' rains ; but gentle showers will be very beneficial, during which the 

 liyhts may bo drawn oft'. All flower stems as they aiipear may be kept 

 closely nipped off until October, when the plants ought to be removcdto 



