November 25, 1669. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAliDENEE. 



425 



This will be better than painting It with gas tar, which should be kept as 

 far from plants as possible. 



Effects of Coke Fumes (T, G.).— The cause of the Tacsonia shedding 

 its leaves we suspect is to be found in the coke used in the stove. We 

 presume you have a smoke pipe from the stove. Coke that has even a 

 taint of sulphur or of tar will not do for stoves in the inside of houses, 

 as the fumes ^"ill be sure to escape less or more. You will have to 

 obtain purer coke. The drying and browning of the buds of Camellias, 

 &c., are no doubt partly owing to the same cause, and the dry, heated 

 atmosphere. In addition to an evaporating basin on or close to the 

 stove, a slight syringing overhead will be useful when much stove heat 

 is given. 



Heating a Gheenhotjse fhom a BIitchen Boiler (Tkirsk). — With 

 an open boiler in your kitchen, you can only heat a greenhouse fram it 

 when the flow and return pipes are, the former a little below the level of 

 the top of the boiler, and the latter when it enters a little above the 

 bottom of the boiler. It is always unadvisable to have any part of a hot- 

 water pipe below the level of the boiler. You may go up as much as you 

 like, but it is contrary to nature to make hot water descend below the 

 source whence it comes. But for the pathway you would have no diffi- 

 culty, as the pipes could stand above the walls of the pit, and the return 

 go under the pathway to the boiler, as little below the boiler level as 

 possible. With an open boiler you cannot raise a pipe so high as to 

 cross over the pathway. With a closed boiler, supplied from a cistern 

 sufficiently elevated, you can do so ; and if the heat in the greenhouse 

 has to be constantly used, the simplest mode would be to take a pipe 

 from the boiler to a cistern against the back wall, say 7 feet from the 

 floor, 18 inches square, and a foot deep, and make that supply the boiler. 

 A pipe from that could cross the path and join the piping on the top of 

 the pit wall, as stated above. If the boiler had been a couple of feet or 

 so lower in level, there would have been no dilficulty, fis you couid have 

 crossed under the path level, and had your piping under your front stage. 

 Without any alteration, your cheapest and easiest plan would be to have 

 two l^-inck pipes fastened against the back wall at the same height as 

 the water in the boiler. The following is another hint : — Your kitchen 

 range seems to be about the middle, and at the back of your house 

 20 feet in Length. Would it not be possible, by removing the wall there 

 and tising an iron plate, or thin lire tiles, to obtain as much heat as you 

 wanted in ordinary weather ? and then a small iron stove, or two or three 

 large bottles— say two-gallon bottles — might be tilled with hot waiter and 

 place i in the front of the house in very severe nights. The whole back 

 of such a house as yours will be less or more heated by the kitchen 

 range. Other contrivances might be resorted to. The above plan was 

 lately tried with good results. The back of the kitchen range, nicely 

 packed, formed part of the back of a neat little house. The proprietor 

 did not like the look of the recess in the wall, and a slate 24 by 30 inches 

 was fixed in the opening, with 2-inch openings at the base and at the top 

 to keep up a circulation in this hciited chamber. In summer, when no 

 heat was wanted, two fillets of wood filled up the ripenings. But for the 

 paths and the position of the boiler, hot water would be best. 



Heating Two Pits PROsr a Greenhoose Boiler (A Market Gardener). 

 — You will want two rows of 4-ineh pipes for bottom heat, and two for 

 top heat in each pit, if both are to be used alike. The boiler will be able 

 to do the work if its position bo all right. See answers to other coiTe- 

 spondents on this subject. Of course, the heating of the greenhouse and 

 pits must be separate. When a high temperature is needed in the pits, 



little or no artificial heat would bo required at times in the greenhouse. 

 Piping would cost from \Qd. to Is. per foot. 



Cemented Tank Leaking (A. B.). — If the cement tank leaks merely 

 where the pipes enter it, it would be best toping all up with red lead and 

 a little tow, or lint yarn ; if at other places use the same, or fill with the 

 best cement pointed in, and if very bad wet the whole well and put a 

 thin coating of cement all over. With pipes in the tank we would care 

 little about having it water-tight, though it would be as well, but would 

 cover the pipes round and above with 6 inches of open rubble instead. 

 We think 6 feet too far for the bottom pipes to be from the glass for 

 Cucumbers, but you can raise your plants nearer the glass, train with 

 one stem, and bring them to a trellis 20 inches from the glass before 

 allowing them to spread. You may thus do with from 18 to 20 inches of 

 soil over the tank or open rubble. The heat does not act so well when it 

 has to pass a great deal of rubble before reaching the soil. 



Dividing a Pit (A. P.). — Your brick pit would do for the purpose pro- 

 posed, and many others besides, and a light, moveable, wooden division 

 would serve the purpose as well as a brick one, and be more handy, as 

 you could shut off one, two, three, or more lights as you thought proper. 

 In snch a pit^you could have about 30 inches of well-worked sweetened 

 stable manure, well beaten and trampled so as not to sink much, and 

 about 15 inches of soil, which would leave 15 inches to the glass. If at 

 all afraid of the bed sinking, you might have some handy moveable trellis 

 for the Cucumbers. In such a pit depending entirely on the dung at 

 bottom, and sun heat, it would be time enough to plant out Cucumbers 

 and ilelons about the end of April or the middle of May. One light, in 

 the mode referred to above, might at first have a deeper bed for raising 

 the plants. When the Cucumbers were over the pits might be used for 

 Radishes, Lettuces, Cauliflowers, or early Potatoes, to be off before wanted 

 for the Cucumbers. If good dung linings could be applied to the outsides 

 of the pit, then the Cucumbers could be planted earlier. If not, it will 

 be better to have a bed in one light from 3 to 4 feet deep for raising the 

 plants (and that can form the top of the larger bed afterwards), and plant 

 out at the times specified. 



Twelve Pansies fob Exhibition (J. Hopper.)— Sel/s : Eclat, Hiss 

 Muir, Queen of the Whites, and Yellow Queen. Yellow Grounds : Comna, 

 Clipper, John Downie, and Prince of Wales. White Oroitnds : Alice 

 Downie, Cupid, Lady Lucy Dundas, and Queen. 



Names of Fruits (G. J5.).— 1, Xouveau Poiteau; 2, Prince Camille de 

 Rohan ; 4, Beurre Diel ; 5, Vicar of Winkfield ; 6, Beurre de Jonghe ; 

 7, Beurre Diel; S. Winter Nelis ; 9, Crasanne; Jl, \Vhite Doyenne; 

 12, Beurre Diel. {C.C.E ).— The Pear marked 2000 is Delauny. (C. B^ 

 ^rt„5/n/).— 3, Beurre Diel; 6, Easter Beurre ; 8, Napoleon ; 10, Nouveau 

 Poiteau; 11, Thompson's. 



Names of Plants [An Old Subscriber). — Jasminum gracile, now some- 

 times called J. simplicifo'ium. {Mrs. Grosvenor Hoorf I. —Woodsia obtusa. 

 {A Greenhorn). —I, Adiantum formosum ; 2, A. affine. (A Ladij Subscriber), 

 —Your Fein appears to us an extreme form of Lastrea Filis-mas. possibly 

 that known as Lastrea elongata. ( J. T. Aldred ' .—Cineraria wigandioides ; 

 Pteris flabellata. (P. a, Derbyshire) —I, Selaginella Kraussiana; 3, 

 S. Martensii; 4, S. csesia ; 2, Asplenium nitens ; 7, A. marinum ; ft, Blech- 

 nura occidentale; 6, Hypolepis repens ; S, Pteris flabellata ; 9, Cheil- 

 anthes hirta ; 10, Adiantum pentadactyloa. {Magfti^ Willis).— The name 

 almost illegible on the label of your plant is Alonochretum sericeam 

 multiflorum. 1, Cincinahs flavens ; 2, Gymnogramma tartarea. 



AIETEOEOLOGICAL OBSEKVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the week ending November 23ri 



POULTRY. BEE, AND PIGEON CHRONICLE. 



ORGANISATION. 



EvEK since the Poultry Club, for reasons which it is needless 

 to consider here, found it necessaij' to commit suicide, I believe 

 the want of some recognised and authoritative body, which 

 should in some sense represent " the fane}-," has been more or 

 less felt by many of the most intelligent exhibitors and breeders. 

 We do not want to " put down " any particular judges ; we do 

 not want something under the control of a few gentlemen who 

 have a " view" (of all social nuisances a gentleman who has a 

 "view" is one of the worst); but I think wo do want some- 

 thing to which, year by year, any matters of gener-^1 interest 

 might be referred, some occasion on which subjects may be dis- 

 cussed, and some tribunal by which any matters on which it is 

 desirable to know the general opinion of " the fancy," might be 

 decided. And I have very often of late thought, that with a 

 little ingenuity all these objects might be accomplished by the 

 Birmingham meeting itself. 



I do not wish to be misunderstood, as I should be most grievously, 

 if I were considered as advocating a formal court of appeal to 

 decide disputed points of judgmg and other similar matters. 

 All such disputes, on the contrary, ought to be strictly prohibited. 

 But matters of interest are continually arising, on which it is 

 desirable people should know " what is to be the law " during 

 the coming season — as, for instance, when hen-tailed Hamburgh 

 cocks were discarded some years ago, or when, as frequently 

 happens, judges find it expedient to lay more stress than 

 formerly upon some particular point. General questions also 

 arise — as when the arrangement of pens w.as so generaUy 

 altered, by separating the sexes— on which the opinion of the 

 body of exhibitors is most desirable, if it can be obtamed m 

 such a way as will carry weight. 



Now that Messrs. Hewitt and Teebay are added, let us hope 

 permanently, to the list of Birmingham Judges, it seems to me 

 that one of 'the chief obstacles to the attainment ot such a desir- 

 able object is removed, and that the old Birmmgham meeting 

 might with very little trouble, and without a formality which 

 ia not to be wished, be made to answer every possible end, be 



