360 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



I November 6, 1S6&. 



In another house I noticed a splendid stock of Marechal 

 Niel Rose on its own rootB. Upwards of a thousand plants of 

 this fine Rose have been propagated this spring, and a great 

 number of them sold. It appears to be one of the best kinds 

 to propagate freely. Some few weeks ago I had a large plant 

 of it, which was unfortunately broken over. It was cut up into 

 a large number of pieces, put into some cutting-pots, and 

 placed on a shelf in the Pine-stove, and scarcely a cutting 

 missed. Even the young soft pieces have struck freely. 



The next house I went into was filled with Orchids in a nice, 

 growing, healthy condition. Amongst them I noticed some 

 nice masses of Phalamopsis amabilis and Schilleriana, Sacco- 

 labium Blumei and guttatum, and in fact there were good 

 free-growing plants of most of the genera to be met with in a 

 good collection of Orchids. In passing through this house, 

 which contains, I should think, £G00 or £700 worth of plants, 

 the thought struck me that Mr. Walton had made a good use 

 of the few pounds with which he first started. The next house 

 to this contained a very choice collection of Ferns. 



I may here observe, that the most interesting and beautiful 

 Fern I ever saw was Asplenium fragrans, at the Liverpool 

 Botanic Gardens. As soon as the fronds were touched they 

 threw off a grateful perfume, the same pleasing sweetness 

 produced by the Grape Vine when in bloom. 



The next house I entered was well filled with a miscellaneous 

 collection of stove plants in good condition. There was a nice 

 stock of Cissus amazonica. This is an exceedingly pretty 

 stove creeper, having beautiful, shining, lance-shaped foliage, 

 ■very similar in appearance and colour to Caladium Veitchii. 

 The leaves are about 3 inches long and 1 inch in breadth at 

 the widest part ; the plant grows very rapidly, and is a very 

 nice addition to our stove climbers. Thunbergia fragrans was 

 also very pretty. This, I think, is likely to prove a valuable 

 addition. There was also an immense stock of Dracrenas of 

 all the best sorts, such as Cooperi and ferrea variegata, Crotons, 

 and winter-flowering Begonias, as well as a fine collection of 

 hardy Ferns from the neighbourhood of Craven and Malham, 

 both famous in Lancashire for their beautiful cascades, water- 

 falls, and magnificent scenery. 



The last houses I visited were well filled with bedding plants, 

 such as Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, Petunias, and Lobelias ; and 

 amongst the bedding Pelargoniums, Violet Hill Nosegay was 

 very pretty, and likely, I think, to be very useful for bedding 

 purposes. 



I left Mr. Walton's nurseries gratified with what I had seen, 

 and satisfied in my own mind that he well deserves the success 

 which has crowned his long and anxious labours. He has now 

 12,000 feet of glass well stored with healthy fine plants. — 

 J. Wilis. 



HAYS'S PATENT CONSTANT STOVE. 



So many applications are made to us for information as to 

 a stove not requiring a chimney, yet suitable for greenhouses 

 and conservatories, that we notice Mr. Hays's thus prominently. 

 We have invariably condemned the use of unchimneyed stoves 

 among plants, because, if either coke or cinders are used, these 

 fuels emit sulphurous acid and carburetted hydrogen in suffi- 

 cient quantities to injure the plants seriously. We have seen 

 Mr. Hays, he assures us that the peat charcoal employed for 

 fuel in his stove emits no other gas than carbonic acid during 

 its burning, and, from having to pass through some of the 

 same charcoal, no more than 8 per cent, of that gas escapes 

 into the air of the greenhouse or other structure where the 

 stove is placed. If this be so, then no injury would be caused 

 to the plants there ; but we have not tried the stove, nor 

 should we mention it thus prominently, if it had not been 

 tried and approved by Professor Pepper, and Mr. Rivers, of 

 Sawbridgeworth, so that it has the sanction of science as well 

 as sound practice. 



That our readers may form a judgment upon the preten- 

 sions of the stove, we copy the following extracts from Mr. Hays's 

 prospectus : — 



" This stove is invented for the purpose of burning peat 

 charcoal, one of the properties of which fuel is to continue to 

 burn until entirely consumed, with a very small supply of 

 oxygen or atmospheric air ; another valuable property in peat 

 charcoal is that it will absorb any obnoxious gases that may 

 come into contact with it, and the inventor has availed himself 

 of this peculiarity by arranging his stove so that the whole of 

 the gaseous products derived from the combustion of the fuel 

 are caused to pass through a chamber fitted in the upper part 



of the stove, containing peat charcoal ; by this arrangement 

 these stoves require no chimney whatever, and thus become emi- 

 nently portable, andsuited for greenhouses, orchard-houses," &c. 

 " Polytechnic Institution, London. 



" I beg to report that I have tried your ' Patent Stove ' for the slow 

 combustion of peat charcoal, and can highly recommend it as a con- 

 venient and cheap means of procuring a steady, gentle heat, in halls 

 of houses, or greenhouses, conservatories, &c, where a forcing heat is 

 not required. I ground my opinion upon the following facts : Peat 

 charcoal from its peculiar porous nature, and also from the presence 

 of a minute portion of clay, has a tendency to burn (when once fairly 

 ignited) with the smallest supply of air that can be admitted ; in one 

 experiment, 5$ lbs. of the charcoal continued to bum in the stove for 

 thirty-six hours, the chimney being a gas-pipe of half an inch diameter. 

 In the second experiment, more air being admitted, the same quantity 

 of charcoal burnt nineteen hours, giving for the two experiments a 

 mean of 27$ hours. 



" "With the arragement of the purifier containing peat charcoal, and 

 fixed on the top of the stove, the steam and some of the carbonic acid 

 are arrested, and the heat further economised, so that the products of 

 combustion leave by the small gas-pipe chimney, only a few degrees 

 higher than the external air. In greenhouses the temperature may 

 not fall sufficiently low to demand a fire for weeks ; but on the ap- 

 proach of a frost this ' Patent Stove ' is at once and conveniently 

 lighted by a spirit lamp placed in the ash-pan. and under the cage 

 containing the peat charcoal, thus saving the domestic trouble, and 

 insuring the regular lighting of the stove. 



" My experiments were tried in a room very much larger than an 

 ordinary greenhouse, and the temperature outside being -18°, the heat 

 was steadily maintained at 64°, rising at one time to 66°, and even 

 to 68°.— J. H. Pepper, F.C.S., A.I.C.E.," &c. 



" I was much gratified last spring with one of your Peat Charcoal 

 Stoves, which I used in my orchard-house to repel the sharp spring 

 frosts while the trees were in full bloom. The facility of lighting it 

 was most agreeable, and its slow combustion requiring no care during 

 the night, after being lighted in the evening, I found a great ad- 

 vantage ; it raised the temperature of my house so as effectually to 

 repel frost. 



" This kind of stove requires no flue or chimney, and, being perfectly 

 free from any effluvia, will be found not only most useful for orchard- 

 houses in spring to repel frost, and in autumn, in cool climates, to 

 hasten the ripening of the fruit and shoots, but also for greenhouses of 

 moderate size, and pits where bedding plants are kept during the 

 winter. It is, moreover, very cleanly, the ashes being so easily re- 

 moved by the drawer at bottom ; in fact, it fully supplies a great want 

 — a cheap and efficient mode of heating without the annoyance of a flue 

 or chimney. — Thos. Rivers, Nurseries, Sm&bridgeworth, Herts. ' 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



" Fig. 1 is an elevation, and fig. 2 a vertical section. 

 " To Light the Stoee.— The chamber a {fio 2) should be filled- 

 to the level of the top of the opening or feeding-door 6, with peat 

 charcoal, then open the throttle valve c. The moveable pan/, 

 must be filled with peat charcoal, which acts as a purifier, and 

 arrests all the vapours and obnoxious odours which arise from 

 the combustion of the fuel. The fire may now be lighted by a 

 piece of charcoal made red hot in a fire or a small spirit lamp 

 in the ash-pan </, having first opened the regulating valve e ; the 

 flame of the lamp will ascend through the gratings and ignite 

 the charcoal in a few minutes, when it may be withdrawn. 



" To Regulate the Temperature. — The quantity of air neces- 

 sary to keep up the combustion must be admitted by the re- 

 gulating valve e, in the ash-pan, which by being more or less 

 opened will determine the rate of consumption of the fuel, and, 

 consequently, the temperature of the stove. 

 . " To Replenish the Fire.— II the stove is attended to every 



