482 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



( Juno 18, 1871. 



Clearly that boiler had Bot a fair trial. It was reset. The 

 fire was made to float over every possible part, and at the 

 same time confined as much as possible to the body of water. 

 The feed pipe was put into the bottom of the boiler, and it 

 was again set going. The effect was magical. So decided 

 was the improvement that another house was attached for 

 growing Melons, and the boiler now heats three houses with 

 fully one-third less fuel than when it heated two ; so that the 

 owner has a Melon house heated for nothing, and is money in 

 pocket by the improved setting of the same old boiler. I do 

 not mean to say this boiler is perfect, well knowing that a 

 divisional saddle or a good tubular would effect a still further 

 saving of fuel, but it satisfies, and is cited as an example of 

 the advantage of careful over careless setting. 



I wUl now cite a case in reference to a tubular boUer, tend- 

 ing to disprove the soundness of the practice of condemning 

 all because one does not work yell. A nobleman in the county 

 of Berks has recently put up a range of houses, and as it fell 

 to my lot to be instrumental in supplying him with a gardener, 

 I felt some interest in the place. The heating was entrusted 

 to and completed by the builders, but is not satisfactory to 

 the gardener on account of the heavy fuel bills he is compelled 

 to incur. The boiler is tubular, and the amount of coke and 

 the time taken to get heat up is certainly unreasonable; and 

 whether an employer may be satisfied or not, it is not likely 

 that any good gardener would, as no one likes to see any useless 

 expenditure in the department for which he is responsible. I 

 have lately had an opportunity of seeing this boiler, and was 

 met at the outset with " No more tubulars for me." An 

 examination told me at a glance — at least, I believe it did — 

 where the fault lay. It is by a maker whose name is by no 

 means obscure, but it is only fair to say is not Weeks or 

 Dennis. My first question was, " Can you get the water to 

 boil in the boiler?" " Yes, easily enough, but cannot get the 

 pipes hot uudertwo or three hours," was the reply. It was not 

 likely that he could, the return pipe entering the boiler at the 

 top immediately under and close to the flow. Now had the 

 return pipe entered the boiler at the bottom, and the feed pipe 

 also, instead of at the top, he would have had no difficulty 

 with the circulation, which is now so sluggish and bad, and 

 instead of " no more tubulars for me," his verdict would pro- 

 bably have been, " nothing but tubulars." A year ago I met 

 a precisely similar case in a sort of rough-and-ready home- 

 made saddle boiler. There was no satisfactory circulation. 

 The flow and return pipes entered the boiler close together. 

 The pipes were taken out, and that side of the boUer plated 

 over; it was then pierced at top and bottom for flow and 

 return, the feed being made to enter the latter pipe close to 

 the boiler, and the whole apparatus has since worked in the 

 most smooth and satisfactory manner, not a hitch or difficulty 

 of any kind occurring. So it is, possibly, in numerous cases ; 

 it is not that the tubular or saddle type is wrong as a system, 

 but that some error in construction, or inferior setting in par- 

 ticular cases, is the real root of the grievance, and the cause of 

 an unjust and sweeping condemnation of whatever class of 

 boiler is locally at fault. 



But there are boilers which set themselves as it were, and 

 are free from the cardinal errors above named, and these both 

 on the saddle and tubular systems. The question, then, is 

 not so much which affords most heat, as which wastes most 

 by heating the air outside instead of the house inside. That 

 is the real error to avoid. That is more than anything else 

 the crucial point in boiler-testing. It is not, of course, of 

 such great moment in gigantic establishments as in the far 

 greater number of limited extent. In many detached stnictures 

 fully as much heat is lost as utilised — that is, one half is 

 wasted to supply the other. One of the snuggest modes I 

 have seen of heating a little house was by a conical boiler fed 

 at the side near the top by a conducting tunnel from the out- 

 side, the boiler being inside, and forming the basis of a hot- 

 bed for propagating. A boiler like that gets the vertical heat 

 of the lire, and is powerful. A spiral boiler — a simple coiled 

 pipe, corkscrew fashion, is a first-rate generator of heat, well 

 adapted for little places, and possibly great ones too, but of 

 the latter I cannot speak practically. There is, I believe, a 

 boiler on this principle now in repute, but of it I have no 

 experience, having only " read about it." 



I am treating this matter without prejudice, simply giving 

 a detail of experience and observation ; but some may say, 

 " After all, which would you choose, to which plan would you 

 give a favourable verdict, tubular or saddle?" This resolves 

 tself into the question of the scientific " EiHBLiNo C.E." or 



the practical Mr. Robson. Well, I would take a slice off both, 

 and should look out for a divisional saddle that would heat 

 quickly, that would conserve the fire around itself, and trans- 

 mit the maximum amount of the heat generated where it was 

 wanted — indoors, and not waste it outdoors. I would choose 

 this mainly because it would burn anything burnable. Tubu- 

 lars have done, are doing, and will do their work splendidly, 

 providing proper food is always at hand. They are more 

 dainty than the saddles. They are the thoroughbred racers of 

 heating, the saddles being the cart horses. But between these 

 two are useful hybrids, swift, powerful, and hardy, that will 

 " eat anything." I have often felt the inconvenience of being 

 without coke, and found coal an indifferent substitute for 

 working a first-rate tubular. I have seen damage result from 

 the same cause ; of course, no fault of the boiler, which had 

 only got into a wrong locality where coke ran short, and was 

 far to fetch. In such a place of famine to the tubular the 

 saddle would have lived and luxuriated. It is on safety and 

 certainty, therefore, that I prefer the saddle type, and would 

 seek celerity and economy by having it divisional. 



I hope none will find fault with me for so deciding and 

 giving the honest reasons guiding to the verdict, at any rate 

 without advancing more powerful reasons, and as free from 

 bias and prejudice as those which prompted the little gossip 

 here penned. I should like to give some experience as to 

 tacking on to the water-heating a flue, for I do not despise 

 a flue, but vay jjaper has run to such an inordinate length 

 that it must be postponed. — W. 



SOMETHING LIKE A "CLOTH OF GOLD." 



A coBBEsroNDENT in a late number of the Journal has alluded 

 to the beauty of this yellow Rose, and I have myself spoken of 

 the " baby " one which is on the waU of my vicarage. It is a 

 very fine baby, only three years old, and has now run up some 

 1(5 or 18 feet, and has had on it this season between fifty and 

 sixty flowers. Some are yet to open, but many of those I have 

 cut have been grand indeed. I have always maintained that 

 it is the finest of all yellow Roses. Its grandly robust footstalk 

 which holds the flower erect gives it a superiority to MariJchal 

 Niel, which the latter's deeper colour and finer blooming qua- 

 lities do not to my mind compensate for. There are several 

 Marochals on the walls of cottages in this and the neighbouring 

 parish, but looking at the trees from a little distance you are 

 led to imagine that they are covered with decaying flowers. 

 It droops its head so much, and displays the outer petals, 

 which decay before even the flower commences to open. Well, 

 my baby is one of which I am very proud ; but there is a 

 plant of it on a house in my parish which puts it so com- 

 pletely in the shade that I cannot forbear giving you some 

 account of it. 



" The Ashes " is the name of a very pretty villa close to the 

 common of Hothfield, but in the parish of Westwell, inhabited 

 by two elderly ladies, one of whom especially has delighted in 

 making the place and filling the garden and shrubberies with 

 the choicest flowers and shrubs. The Misses Whittle were 

 friends of our departed friend the Rev. Joshua Dix, and by his 

 kindness many choice things found their way here. The place 

 is quite a little gem, and the Roses are especially its glory. 

 The soil is naturally too hghtfor them, and but for our staunch 

 friend the Manetti they would not have succeeded so well. 

 Against the front of the house facing westerly is the plant of 

 Cloth of Gold to which I allude, covering completely one- 

 half of the house. It has two large main stems, and is either 

 on its own roots or budded very low — I measured the other 

 day one of these stems, it was nearly 10 inches in circum- 

 ference — and the foliage is very grand. It has almost grown 

 too large for the place, and last year it was very much cut back 

 and cut out, and as a consequence there are not so many 

 blooms on it as I have sometimes seen, when hundreds of 

 flowers were in all stages on it. This year there are nearly a 

 hundred, and from the character of the year I am sure it 

 would have equalled any of its former feats in blooming. It 

 does not seem that Cloth of Gold is particular as to aspect. 

 Mine is planted on a south wall, and it has grown also on the 

 east side, in both aspects blooming abundantly, while, as I 

 have said, that at The Ashes is on a westerly one. There has 

 been nothing that I know of particular in the treatment of it ; 

 certainly not in my case. The stock has pushed its roots 

 under the walk, and has had no " turtle soup " to feed on. 

 May it not be, then, that if persons who complain that they 

 cannot gst it to flower were to leave it alone and not touch 



