November 25, 1869. ] 



JOUENAL OP HORTICDLTDKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



423 



the feeding door there will be little of an outlet of heated air 

 or smoke. We like onr top-feeding stove very much, but we 

 cannot set an evaporating basin on it well, and have, therefore, 

 to neutralise the dry heat by other means. In all such stoves 

 their good working must depend on the close-fitting of feeding 

 and ashpit doors, and the draught and the combustion when the 

 fire is hghted must be regulated by the smaller or larger opening 

 in the ashpit door. A very small slit for air over the fire-box 

 will greatly help in lessening the smoke, causing it to be con- 

 sumed instead of coming like a dense cloud from the smoke 

 tube. In many small houses a stove inside costing with all 

 appurtenances, say, from £3 to £5, would keep a house com-' 

 fortable all the winter with something like one-fourth or one- 

 fifth of the fuel that would be required for a boiler. 



We shall now make a few remarks on flues, as the next 

 cheapest for small houses, and dispensing with all lighting, (tc, 

 inside the house. Unlike stoves, the smoke pipe or funnel of 

 the flue is nearly or altogether horizontal, with a pipe or other 

 chimney perpendicular at the farther end. If the flue is 

 slightly on the rise it will draw as well ; but it will draw very 

 well on the level, with the raised chimney at the end, if the 

 are-bars of the furnace be from 21 to 30 inches bchie the level 

 of the top of the flue. We have used earthenware pipes at a 

 yard from the furnace, but we cannot say much in their favour. 

 We have seen the stronger, harder-burnt material used for 

 water, &e., employed with better effect. Round pipes of Port- 

 land cement, from 7 to 12 inches in diameter, make excellent 

 flues, and it bricks are used a yard or so from the furnace, the 

 cement stauds the heat well. When pipes of any kind are 

 used, they should go into square recesses, covered with a tile 

 or slate, at the comers, so that all sweeping and cleaning can 

 be done without disturbing a pipe. Flues, however, above 

 ground are not pretty, and in small houses are apt to come in 

 the way. Let us, therefore, once more recommend to all 

 owners of small houses, who wish to combine comfort with 

 economy wherever they can. Sink from SO to 3G inches for a 

 stokehole, to have a small flue beneath the pathway. 



We had a small greenhouse unhealed for years. We said to 

 numbers of hot-water men, " Now this case of ours is one of 

 many thousands. Can you not make it worth your while to 

 heat such houses cheaply, and depend on the vast numbers for 

 remuneration?" We kept for some time, but have now lost, 

 the rough estimates. Of almost every one of these men, if 

 we had a large job of heating, we would consider the opinion 

 and judgment better than ours, and would be guided accord- 

 ingly ; but none came near what we wanted for this little 

 house. At last, chiefly with the help of a good labourer and 

 the assistance of a bricklayer at the furnace, we flue-heated the 

 house at the expense of not many more shillings than it would 

 have required pounds to heat it by hot water. The floor had 

 been covered with 9-inch square tiles, and we made that the 

 basis of our operations, resolving to leave the floor just as it 

 nothing had been done. The passage was in front, so there 

 we determined to have the flue — a flow and return. Three 

 bricks on edge would have made the two flues. As we had 

 bricks, we preferred brick-on-bed for strength, and though two 

 bricks deep would have done, we used three, with their joints 

 as small as possible. A trench was taken out of the requisite 

 depth to suit the rest of the floor. The bottom was laid with 

 slate, except close to the furnace, where bricks and tiles were 

 used. Three walls of brick-on-bed for strength were used, 

 leaving two spaces between of from 4 J to 5 inches wide for the 

 flues. These were covered with thin tiles near the furnace, 

 and the reft with thin slates resting on the three walls. These, 

 covered with mortar, had the flooring tiles bedded on them, tlie 

 centre of the tile of !) inches over the centre of the flue, and 

 resting on the wall on each side. These side walls give sup- 

 port on each side to the next row of tiles, which are thus left 

 hollow for fully half their width, one side resting on the 

 wall, and the other side on the earth, &c., of the flooring. 

 Eighteen inches wide of surface are thus exposed to the 

 direct heat of the small flues, and fully 6 inches on each side, 

 making about 30 inches of heat-radiating surface. On lighting 

 the fire, the furnace bars being pretty well sunk, the tiles 

 begin to throw off heat in about half an hour, and very little 

 fuel maintains the necessary warmth to keep the temperature 

 from 40' to 45° and TM'. No smoke has troubled us, except once 

 or twice, and a little mortar at the joints soon stopped that. 



Now, much of the pleasure of having a little greenhouse close 

 to or joined to a living-house consists first, in being able to 

 walk into it directly from the house, and then being able to 

 walk round it, which can always be done when the house is 



from 12 to more feet in width. Now, for such a house what 

 better plan could there be, say the house measuring from 

 20 to 30 feet in length, than having a o inch flue all round 

 beueath the pathway, a tile covering it, and the next tile en 

 each side as above partly hollow, giving thus 5 inches of warm 

 radiating surface, and some 12 or 14 inches not quite so warm, 

 but considerably heated ? Just think, too, of the pleasure in a 

 frosty or dull drizzling day of having a rapid or a sauntering 

 walk round such a house with such a dry, warm, firm path to 

 walk upon, instead of ordinary tiles or ilags ! Now not half 

 the fuel would be needed to make such a house comfortable 

 that would be required for the best small boiler. The last two 

 days of sharp frost that we had, a man put on rather more fire 

 than was necessary, but it served for the two days. At the 

 end of fifty hours the tilea were just pleasantly warm. Of 

 course the furnace and ashpit doors were kept shut when the 

 fire was turned out. This is another of the advantages the 

 flue, and such a flue as this in particular, has over hot water; 

 the heat remains so long after the fire has gone out. 



We expect to be accused of retrograding instead of advancing, 

 but we wish to be of service, not only to the possessors of 

 small glass houses, but to the many thousands more who would 

 have one at once but for the difficulty and the expense of heating 

 them.— E. F. 



Death of Me. W. Peret. — At Wisemans, in the Nurseries, 

 Sawbridgeworth, on the 20th inst., Mr. Wm. Perry, agedfifty- 

 nine, forty-niae years of which he was the faithful assistant 

 of the Messrs. Rivers. Mr. Perry for many years acted as 

 judge at the metropolitan Rose Shows, and was well known 

 and appreciated for his quiet unobtrusive manner and sound 

 judgment. " Faithful and true to the end." 



COVENT GARDEN MARKET.— November U. 



The change of wind has bronght large arrivals from the Azores and 

 Canary Islands ; amonfj other articles are the Opuntia frnit,the Banana, 

 and some fine specimens of the Pomegranate. Home-grown produce 

 is quite suflicient for general purposes, except Apples and Pears. French 

 imports are moderate. 



FEUIT. 



TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 



F. & A. Dickson & Sons, 106, Eastgate Street, and Upton 

 Nurseries, Chester. — Catalogue of Forest Trees, Hardy Orna- 

 mental Trees and Plants, dx.— List of Roses, New Plants, Hardij 

 C'lintbers, d'C. 



James Whitehead, Croft Bank, Hollinwood, near Manchester. 

 —Catalogue of Carnations, Picotees, Pinks, d-c. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



Books (J/is* Browne).— V^e know of no small illustrated book on the 

 Gr.asscs, except Plues's " British Grasses." 



