476 On the Construction of Kitchen 



arrangement has been found to be of considerable use, 

 as it serves to prevent small pieces of coal from getting 

 between the inside door and that flat surface when the 

 door is shut. 



These double doors (of a size larger than that repre- 

 sented by the two preceding figures) have lately been 

 introduced in a considerable number of hothouses in 

 the neighbourhood of London ; and I have been told, 

 by several persons who have tried them, that they have 

 been found very useful indeed. I was lately assured by 

 a very respectable gardener, who has adopted them in 

 all his hothouses, that since he has used them and 

 the register ash-pit doors which belong to them and are 

 always sold with them, and since he has altered the 

 construction of his fire-places, his consumption of coals 

 has been little more than half as much as it used for- 

 merly to be. 



In setting these double doors in brick-work, great 

 care should always be taken to make the entrance into 

 the fire-place of some considerable length, or to keep 

 the hither ends of the iron bars on which the fuel burns 

 at some distance from the inside door ; otherwise, if the 

 burning fuel be near that door, it will heat it and its 

 frame red-hot, which will soon destroy their form and 

 prevent the door from closing the entrance of the fire- 

 place with accuracy. 



I have found it to be a good general rule to place 

 the hither ends of the bars, which form the grate of 

 the fire-place, as far beyond the inside door as that 

 door-way is wide in the clear. And it will be found to 

 be an excellent precaution' to defend the door from 

 the heat, if that part of the passage into the fire-place 

 which lies beyond the inside door be kept constantly 



