J32 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



yellow or white cedar, and T. orientalis 

 is the Siberian or Chinese arbor-vitae, 

 a very compact, hardy evergreen. Tax- 

 odium distichum, the southern cypress, 

 though deciduous, like our American 

 larch, is a conifer and makes a splendid 

 specimen for our lawns, and the giants 

 of the south provide us with its invalu 

 able timber. For dwarf evergreens the 

 taxus (yews) are unequaled. They are 

 hardy and have several ornamental 

 forms. 



It is characteristic of many of the 

 conifers that they vary much in form 

 and color, hence the many varieties 

 that are now known, and to this varia 

 tion we owe the several golden forms 

 we have in the thuyas, taxus and reti- 

 nosporas. 



I have said nothing about propaga 

 tion of the shrubs, because that is a 

 nurseryman s business, and unless you 

 are in the business to some extent you 

 had better buy the shrubs from reputa 

 ble nurserymen. Even they depend 

 largely on importing small plants from 

 France from specialists who raise mil 

 lions of the leading varieties and sup 

 ply them at a seemingly very low cost. 

 If you have a few acres of good light 

 soil, easy to work, it would be a good 

 investment to buy a thousand or so of 

 small plants of the leading kinds and in 

 two years you will have shrubs that 

 you can sell your customers with the 

 greatest confidence. 



The long list of noble trees I cannot 

 enter on. Nurserymen publish descrip 

 tive catalogues of all desirable kinds. 

 I am not in favor of transplanting 

 large trees from the woods of our na 

 tive elms and maples. They survive a 

 few years, but generally collapse in 

 three or four. 



HEATING. 



There are only two recognized meth 

 ods of heating our glass structures, 

 steam and hot water. Brick flues have 

 gone and electricity has not come, but 

 it may. Some fifteen years ago heat 

 ing greenhouses by steam came with a 

 rush, although it had long been used as 

 a means of heating dwellings and large 

 buildings. Men who had been at first 

 most sanguine aboiit its superiority 

 over water began to hesitate and con 

 sider whether after all hot water had 

 not the most advantages. A patriarch 

 of the business, Mr. Peter Henderson, 

 being asked by the writer in 1889 

 which was the best way to heat, in 

 quired what system I was then using. 

 On being told &quot;hot water,&quot; the reply 

 came quick and brief, &quot;Keep on with 

 the hot water.&quot; 



But after all this ebb and flow of 

 popular favor it is now well established 

 that with an improved system of pip 

 ing, steam for many establishments is 

 the cheapest and best, and although by 

 no means claiming to know of steam 

 what I do of the circulation of water, 

 we will first consider 



Steam Heating. 



Steam as applied to heating green 

 houses has several advantages over 



water. Heat is quickly produced by 

 steam and sent through the houses 

 in case of a quick fall of the outside 

 temperature. It is also quickly reduced 

 or entirely absent in the pipes should 

 you see in the early morning that it is 

 going to be a bright, warm day and no 

 steam heat will be needed. This I con 

 sider one of its best features, for we all 

 know how we have suffered with over 

 heated houses when the water in the 

 pipes would not cool. 



With a number of pipes and a valve 

 at each, a house with steam and proper 

 attention can be kept at almost the de 

 sired degree. It is cheaper to put in a 

 steam plant. The piping is much cheap 

 er, sufficiently less to offset the larger 

 cost of the boiler. 



Steam is undoubtedly the best sys 

 tem when a block of houses is devoted 

 to one purpose, but where two rose 

 houses and two carnation houses are 

 heated by one boiler it would not be so 

 economical, because a month or more 

 after no heat was needed in the carna 

 tion houses you would have to still 

 make steam for the rose houses. 



Where a dozen houses are used for 

 many different plants water is to be 

 preferred. Water can be heated to a 

 temperature of about 140 degrees, just 

 sufficient to take the chill off the house; 

 a very slow burning fire will do this. 

 With steam you must have sufficient 

 fire to make steam or you may as well 

 have no fire at all. If you wish only 

 to fill one 1-inch pipe the boiler must 

 be full of steam or none will pass into 

 the pipe. Steam is most convenient for 

 evaporating tobacco. Altogether, steam 

 is the plan for large establishments, 

 where four or five houses will want 

 heat at the same time, and water is the 

 best for houses where less quantities 

 but greater varieties are grown. 



Cast iron boilers of several makes are 

 used by greenhouse men to generate 

 steam, but wherever there is much 

 work to be done a steel tubular boiler, 

 return flue, is the best. If for locomo 

 tives, steamships and factories the tubu 

 lar boiler is the best, why is it not the 

 best for the greenhouse with some mod 

 ification of the way the fire is applied? 



I have seen some greenhouse boilers 

 where the fire or heat from it first 

 passed under the whole length of the 

 boiler, then returned to the front by 

 half of the flues and again returned to 

 the rear by the other half of the flues. 

 We believe that was overdoing it. On 

 returning the third time the smoke 

 would be so cool that it could not help 

 in making steam, therefore it was no 

 help. If the flame and smoke is car 

 ried beneath the boiler, returning to the 

 smoke stack through the flues and the 

 draught is what it should be, you will 

 have got about all the heat from the 

 fuel that is possible towards making 

 steam. 



This is a proper place to say something 

 on fuel. We have within a very few 

 years been compelled to use under steel 

 tubular boilers several kinds and grades 

 of coal. We think the most economical 

 fuel, which gives the best all-round re 

 sults, is soft or bituminous coal. The 



grade known as three-fourths lump is 

 very satisfactory, that is, all dust and 

 small particles that would pass through 

 a %-inch screen are not present. Soft 

 coal needs attention, so do the small 

 sizes, pea and buckwheat, of anthracite, 

 which some use because they can purchase 

 it at a low figure. You can bank down 

 soft coal for many hours, keeping in a 

 fire, while there is little or no combus 

 tion going on; with added draught it is 

 quickly made into a lively fire. Unless 

 your draught is very powerful there is 

 a serious objection to the larger sizes of 

 anthracite, and more particularly coke. 

 During the coal famine of two years ago 

 we burned hard coal under a fifty horse 

 power boiler, and we never burnt up $5 

 bills so quickly. This hard coal, and 

 still more, coke, will lay over the fire 

 bars a red-hot fire, just what you want 

 in a cast iron heater, giving little dis 

 tribution of heat, but burning out the 

 crown sheet of your boiler. This actu 

 ally occurred with us with a boiler but a 

 few months installed, and the boiler- 

 maker who put in a patch told us the 

 cause. Altogether, a good grade of soft 

 coal is the most satisfactory and econom 

 ical for a steel tubular boiler. There is 

 one duty with soft coal that must never 

 be neglected, viz., cleaning the flues. 

 Once a day for this most essential part 

 of stoking may do in mild weather, but 

 when you are running the boilers to their 

 capacity the flues should be cleaned twice 

 a day. It will save your coal pile. 



Many prefer to use old marine boilers 

 that have been condemned for use where 

 high pressure was needed. They may 

 last a long time, but as in everything else 

 a new boiler made for you is the cheapest 

 in the end. 



There are a few things connected with 

 the care of a steam boiler worth men 

 tioning, which never should, but some 

 times are, neglected. One is to frequent 

 ly open the valve on the blow-off pipe, 

 which is or should be connected with the 

 lowest part of tne boiler, and into which 

 any dirt or sediment is sure to settle. 

 Simple as this is, we have known the 

 day fireman to think it was the duty of 

 the night fireman, and the night fireman 

 also to shirk this little effort ; between 

 the two an accident occurred that might 

 have been most serious. Water that is 

 used over and over again, as it is in our 

 greenhouse boilers, will deposit much less 

 sediment than where a new supply of 

 water is continually being supplied to 

 make up for that constantly evaporated. 

 Still, once a month your boilers should 

 have a good wash out. It is easily done, 

 and, like cleaning the flues of soot if 

 you want to save fuel, is an economy 

 that is worth while. 



There are two very different systems of 

 using steam in greenhouses. One may 

 be called the gravity system, and the 

 other the high pressure system. Both 

 have their advocates, but circumstances 

 will often decide which is the better sys 

 tem to use for your particular place. 



Frequently the end of a range of glass 

 may abut on a steep bank or ravine, or 

 a sharp descent, where it is little expense 

 to cut away the bank and place your 

 boiler sufficiently below the level of the 



