ON THE MERITS OV IRON AN» WOOD FOR HOOFS. 10 



Kent, which could never be brought to act under the door, and 

 succeeded very much to her satisfaction in causing the water to 

 descend in both flow and return pipes, to more than two feet 

 below the level of the bottom of the boiler, after which it had to 

 rise again to above the level of the top of the boiler. The lady's 

 name I have permission and authority to communicate to any 

 person wishing to inspect the apparatus and being so perfectly 

 satisffed with the working now, she has kindly consented to an- 

 swer any enquiry. In concluding these few practical instructions 

 or observations on the relative properties of common fines, steam 

 and hot water ; I shall merely state, that, during my practice I 

 have always considered hot water a much more congenial heat to 

 plants and all other organized bodies whether belonging to the 

 vegetable or animal kingdom .from their close analogy, and the 

 circumstance of its containing less of the noxious gases which not 

 only escape from the surface of the flue, but from all the fissures 

 however the flues may be built, for it is impossible to confine this 

 light and subtle fluid. Moreover, as the temperature of hot 

 water pipes is more equal than a flue at both extremities, and 

 rarely exceeds two-hundred degrees of heat, there is not that 

 exhaustion of the aqueous or humid gases which is so essentially 

 necessary to the very existence, much more to the health and fruit- 

 fulness of all plants, whether natives of torid or frigid climates, 

 as nothing can tend more to the injury of plants and to the gene- 

 rating of insects than an acid atmosphere highly charged with 

 unwholesome and extraneous gases, and as strong fires applied 

 for heating hot houses with common flues, dries up all humidity 

 and decomposes those nutritious gasses with which the atmos- 

 phere is charged, and which are so beneficial to the growth, the 

 health, and the cleanliness of every description of plant, it is only 

 first to infer that a flue which is continually destroying, by its 

 intensity of dry heat, the very vitals of all plants, namely, the 

 luunidity of the air in which they are growing, besides evolving 

 the disagreeable smell so common to flues when hot, which 

 anises from the decomposition of the animal and vegetable par- 

 ticles continually floating in the air, it cannot be so congenial to 

 the vegetable kingdom as a mild, gentle, and regular heat, such 

 as is produced by hot water, which fluid is free from all noxious 

 s given out from the smoke, soot, lime, and bricks of a com- 

 mon hot house flue. 





