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565 



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of the tank. The bottom, as well as 

 the sides of the tanks, are bolted to- 

 gether by iron bars, five-eighths of an 

 inch in thickness, passed through the 

 wood, and screwed up as tightly as 

 possible. Each tank is divided by an 

 inch and a half elm board, and is co- 

 vered with common roofing-slates — 

 those that are generally called ' Prin- 

 cesses,' twenty-four inches long and 

 fourteen wide; the edges not cut 

 square, but used just as purchased, 

 and the joints stopped merely with 

 wetted clay : there is no fear of too 

 much steam escaping into the house. 



" As the divisions of tank b were 

 fifteen inches wide, a small strip of oak 

 is nailed on the inside of the tank, of 

 sufficient thickness to allow the slates, 

 which were fourteen inches wide, to 

 reach across. Round the edges of the 

 tanks is an inch board, eleven inches 

 deep; and the plunging material is fine 

 sand. The slates carry the weight of 

 this sand, though eleven inches deep, 

 with ease, not one of them having 

 cracked. 



" In a considerable part of tank b 1 , 

 rich mould is put instead of the sand, 

 in which pines are planted without any 

 pots, after the French mode. The tank 

 holds twenty-two hogsheads ; and the 

 boiler, though a small one, is fully able 

 to heat this quantity. The water, heat- 

 ed to 114"-' or 11 5"^ of. Fahrenheit, is 

 high enough to keep the house at a 

 temperature of VO'' at night; and a mo- 

 derate fire, kept up for five or sis hours 



in the twenty-four, is abundantly suffi- 

 cient." — Gard. Chron. 



Dry Stove. — Formerly this was heat- 

 ed by flues only, a stage for plants oc- 

 cupying the place of the bark-pit in the 

 moist stove. But modern science has 

 suggested the far better mode of heat- 

 ing by either steam or hot water. Of 

 these two the latter is by far the most 

 prelerable. The following is the plan 

 adopted at Elcot, and has never been 

 much improved : — 



" Brick flues are subject, from their 

 numerous joints and the mortar crack- 

 ing, to give out at times a sulphureous 

 gas, which is injurious to plants; and 

 even with two fireplaces in a house 

 forty or fifty feet long, it is impossible 

 to keep up an equal temperature in the 

 whole length. The houses get over- 

 heated in the neighbourhood of tho 

 fireplace; and it is difficult to maintain 

 a proper warmth at the extremities of 

 the flues. 



" Steam may do very well on a large 

 scale, and where there is constant at- 

 tention to the fire, both day and night; 

 but the objections are, the great ex- 

 pense of a steam-boiler and the appa- 

 ratus belonging to it, the frequent 

 repairs that are required, and the 

 necessary attention to the fire, which 

 is as great upon a small scale as upon 

 a large one. Besides this, there is a 

 greater risk of explosion in a hot-house 

 steam-boiler than in that of a steam- 

 engine ; for steam-engines generally 

 have persons properly instructed to 



