238 



JOCRNAL OF HOETICDLTURE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



t JIaa-ch 20, 187S. 



■water to heat a room equal in size to the one the fire is situated 

 in and to the same temperature. Thus we save another cent, 

 per cent, of heat, and experience no diminution of tempera- 

 ture in the room. We cause the heat to be expended at the 

 fire, instead of its being absorbed by surrounding surfaces, or 

 expended by radiation and passing up the chimney. Absorb 

 the heat in hot water in this way, and the heat passing up 

 the chimney will be found extremely small. 



Whilst aUuding to house fires I must remark on the great 

 attendant waste of coals. Nothing is so wasteful as an open 

 fire grate. It is absorption of the heat of the fire on three 

 sides, radiation on the other three, and the only one of benefit 

 to the room is the front, which suffers continual diminution or 

 loss from the cold air entering by the door, or the draught of 

 air caused by the heated air ascending by the chimney, and the 

 consequent passage of cold air to supply its place. AVe have 

 a fire ostensibly to warm a room, and its warmth during the 

 continuance of the fire, and afterwards until the chimney is 

 cooled, is being sucked out of it. This may be all very well if 

 the object be to cause a circulation of air to displace a foul 

 atmosphere by fresh, but as respects heating economically it 

 is absurd. It would be far more economical and very much 

 more effective to have a stove, the atmosphere of the room 

 being warmed by the radiation of the heat from every part of 

 the stove, not fixing the stove in a wall recess, but detached 

 from waUs, and with a flue to carry-off the smoke, etc., result- 

 ing from the combustion of the fuel. The atmosphere, it must 

 be admitted, would suffer considerable loss of temperature from 

 the fire taking in the quantity of air required for the combus- 

 tion of the materials used as fuel, and the ingress of cold air^ 

 into the room to supply the equilibrium of the air of the 

 room. This stove-heating would give in a room a temperature 

 equal to that secured by an ordinary fire grate consuming four 

 times as much fuel. What the loss of heat by the fire draw- 

 ing its supply of air from the apartment may be is not readily 

 ascertainable, but that a varying and considerable loss is in 

 that way effected must be patent to those paying careful at- 

 tention to the subject. The difference could readily be tested 

 by feeding the fire with air through a pipe or tube with one 

 end immediately under the fire and the other communicating 

 with the external air, the stove being sealed in the room as 

 far as that could be effected by close-fitting doors where the 

 fuel is admitted. By a damper the air admitted as well as that 

 escaping could be regulated at will. This, I make no question, 

 would secure considerable increase of heat to the room. 



Anything better calculated than our fire grates, with their 

 wide-open chimnies, to waste fuel could not well be conceived. 

 Nothing can be said in their favour except that they secure 

 a change of atmosphere ; but could not this be effected by a 

 direct supply of fresh air from the external atmosphere, at the 

 same time allowing the vitiated atmosphere of the room to 

 pass off? I believe a contrivance has been patented for supply- 

 ing ordinary house fires with air dkect from the atmosphere 

 by means of flues at the back, sides, or under the fire, which 

 causes the heat to be directed into the room, the vitiated atmo- 

 sphere being carried off by a funnel. This is said to effect a 

 saving of three-fourths of the fuel, and I fully believe it. How 

 unfortunate it is that inventions of this kind should be fettered 

 by patents ! The invention may be seen in operation at the 

 office of Mr. Peachy, architect, Northgate, Darlington. Men- 

 tioning Darlington reminds me that one of the family of Pease 

 has offered to bear the expense attendant on the formation of 

 a gardeners' institute in that town. Is this to be the com- 

 mencement of what I have said more than once in these pages 

 • — viz., we shall have institutions in all our large towns for the 

 mental improvement of gardeners on the principles of me- 

 chanics' mstitutcs ? I am persuaded we shall, and I view this 

 commencement with much satisfaction. 



Other means have been proposed with a view to economise 

 coal in house fires ; among them is noticeable a grate which may 

 be placed in another grate so as to reduce the size of the fire space. 

 It is the invention of Jlr. Walker, of York, and is to be had 

 of most ironmongers at a cheap rate. It is said to effect a 

 considerable saving of coal. Another project is the mixing of 

 small coal with an equal amount of clay, the latter brouglit to 

 the consistency of puddle and then thoroughly mixed with the 

 small coal, forming a sort of mortar-like substance ; but there 

 is this disadvantage — namely, the fire must be made of coal 

 in the usual way, and the " cats," as they are called, after- 

 wards added, surrounding them with coal. The " eats " are 

 madejup into balls by hand. 



I mention these methods as indications of a desire on the 



part of those interested to adopt any simple means of keeping 

 down the coal bill. Nothing destroys prejudice so quickly as 

 permitting the pocket to be affected ; but so long as the heat 

 afforded by coal is allowed to make its escape after being gene- 

 rated there cannot be, in my opinion, any great saving of fuel. 

 We must remodel our fire grates, and, whilst retaining the 

 heat, allow the products of combustion to escape without 

 taking along with them more than a small amount of the heat, 

 instead of the half or more passing away by the chimney. It 

 may be vain to expect any great saving by the conversion of 

 coal into coke, the abstraction from it of the gas, and using 

 the latter as well as the coke for heating purposes. I am 

 sanguine, however, that it would be a considerable saving, and 

 I should be glad if any of your correspondents would teU us 

 the heating properties of gas, say how many feet of cubic air 

 could be warmed to a given temperature by burning a thousand 

 feet of gas, the cost of making or value per thousand feet, also 

 the quantity of gas to be had from a ton of coal, and the 

 weight of coke that would remain after the abstraction of the 

 gas, with the cost for labour. 



I shall conclude this paper hy observing that my remarks 

 are intended as suggestions, and that information and criticism^ 

 are desh'ed, for we shall some day have an almost smokeless 

 cheap fuel, and so much of its heat as is present will be pre- 

 vented escaping by the chimney. — G. Abbey. 



ORCHARD-HOUSE NOTES. 



The present season being a late one had the effect of bring- 

 ing out the perfect bloom in our orchard houses only on the 

 l'2th of this month. I generally reckon this point of perfect 

 bloom to be when the leaves begin to accompany the blos- 

 soms, and are about an inch long. At that time the houses 

 look at their best. The greatest living poet had talked of 

 coming to see them, but really the sight, though pretty enough,, 

 is not of itself enough to warrant such an honour. The train- 

 ing of the cordons is effective no doubt, but after much expe- 

 rience of visitors I have ceased to look at an orchard house in 

 bloom as the very best time to see it. I think, though, that 

 the lovely white blossoms I saw at Chiswick and at Sawbridge- 

 worth (of which one expected to hear more) were a great gain 

 in point of effect. 



Possibly at this advanced stage of knowledge it may he 

 superfluous to hint to possessors of orchard houses that it is 

 essential to the setting of the bloom to shake, or rather strike, 

 the various parts of the trees smartly with a pole. By neglect- 

 ing this we certainly had less bloom set last season. 



I have never painted my Peach trees till this winter, when,, 

 finding traces of scale on a few, I coated the stems and branches 

 with ordinary oil paint, and fiUed-in the hollows with thicker 

 paint. This, if of a greenish hue, is 'n?onspicuous, and very- 

 easy to apply. The brush slides over \hi branches easily, and 

 the trees look well now, and are very healthy. After all, what 

 is there objectionable in paint more than in the slimy com- 

 positions too dear to gardeners ? Does paint clog the pores 

 more ? The oil nourishes if anything, and the paint is easily 

 put on, nor does it come off on the clothes of passers-by. Most 

 remedies act mechanically by glueiug-in insects' eggs. If of 

 stronger composition they injure the foliage and bloom. I 

 have also appUed pauit to my Vines, just missing the buds, and 

 all appears prosperous. 



I have little faith in any remedy for red spider, except 

 vigorous and constant syringing. Sulphur for mildew in Vines 

 seems also at times curiously ineffective. Several seasons ago 

 mildew appeared in a vinery 80 feet long, and there only ; 

 soon the leaves were whitened, and the very wood stained. 

 We tried sulphur in various ways, but could not conquer it- 

 Then next season we tried wiping with soft wet cloths dipped 

 in sulphur. This did better, and finally, the next season, we 

 found dry cloths passed round each berry — say fortnightly — 

 completely cured the disease. It vanished from the house ; 

 every leaf and berry became healthy, and the crop was sold for 

 Covent Garden with only the bloom gone from it, being of the 

 usual size, and well coloured. Even this wiping was not very 

 long to perform ; and as to bloom, well, these /Jrapes being 

 not for our own use, who looks for bloom in dealers' Grapes 

 in September? Last season I was surprised to see a few ber- 

 ries beginning to mildew in this house, as it had been other- 

 wise in perfect health, but we soon cut them away. These 

 isolated cases appeared only in a passage glazed between two 

 doors always open in summer, and in a great draught, and 

 nowhere else, except in three very small vineries subject to 



