276 



Ni:W ENGLAND FARMER, 



March 14, 1832. 



is completely rotten. If this cannot be obtained 

 and your ground is poor, bury your manure so 

 tliat it do not come iu contact with the bulbs, otli- 

 erwise it will be sure to destroy the colors ol the 

 flowers. If Mr Rusticus or any other person, will 

 procure good healthy roots (those from auction I 

 would not recommend to any one,) and follow the 

 above brief directions, I am confident he will be 

 successful and be convinced that there is no such 

 great art in growing any of the above bulbs, as he 

 would make us believe. The compost iu which I 

 grow my chrysanthemums is, four wheel-barrows 

 full of rich loam from rotten sods; one barrow 

 full of well lotted manure ; one barrow full of 

 vegetable mould, and half a barrowtiill of sand — 

 well mixed. If it lay a year after mixing it is 

 the better. Destroy the weeds by frequent turning. 



Your correspondent observes, with imusual 

 modesty, that he has not the vanity to ihink his 

 judgment superior to that of others, but will not 

 give up to me. Allow me to reply, that I never 

 was ambitious of such a sacrifice on my account, 

 and would take very little trouble to obtain it — 

 bearing in mind the good old adage, that " one 

 man might lead a horse to water," &c. He does 

 not seem to recollect any flower being in blossom, 

 with the exception of a few lilacs, at the same 

 time with tulips; he censures the weakness of my 

 memory and then makes a further exception of 

 one of the varieties I mentioned. As the beauty 

 of difti-'rent flowers must be judged according to 

 taste, in which few horticulturists agree, and on 

 which I have known endless and most improfitable 

 disputes. I believe the respective merits of tulips 

 and chrysanthemums will find advocates enough, 

 wi^.hout Mr Rusticus or myself being over zealous 

 in^lheir behalf. I acknowledge his good nature 

 in being glad that I aui satisfied to compete for 

 small premiums. " If I cultivate to perfection, it 

 is all he wishes." Think of that, Mr Editor— 

 with such an enil in view, what would I not un- 

 dertake ? I can at present only wish that his 

 prayer for the blessing of patience, may be grant- 

 ed, for I am confident he can never be a success- 

 ful cultivator without it ; and to his regret that I 

 should so misinterpret his language, as meaning to 

 cast any censure on the gentlemen forming the 

 the committee, I reply, that I am not the only 

 one, by many, who has labored under the same 

 impression. After adverting to the ignorance in 

 which Euglish judges are kept, from not knowing 

 the owners of flowers offered for jjremiums, he 

 says, " and thus it is that the poor and humble cot- 

 tager is often the successful comi)etitor." Such 

 an assertion can bear but one inference, and Mr 

 Rusticus is remarkably awkward in his attempt 

 to conceal it. His compliment to Mr Loudon is, 

 of course, deserved; but his admiration in this 

 case, might have been usefully coupled with the 

 recollection that the practical correspondents of 

 the Gardeners' Magazine, neither advance sugges- 

 tions nor endeavor to substantiate them, Without 

 giving their practical experience. 



In conclusion, Mr Editor, though I have no ob- 

 jection to exchange opinions on the culture of any 

 plant or fruit with which I may be conversant, 

 with any person, I desire no further controversy 

 with a writer whose only argutnent is contradic- 

 tion, without affording us the least knowledge of 

 any kind, but that he thinks himself wis .r than 

 other folks. I am, yours respectfully, 



A PRACTICAL HORTIL DLTURIST. 



Charlestown, March 5, 1832. 



HEATING HOT-HOUSES AND GREEN- 

 HOUSES BY HOT WATER. 



Although the subject of heating hot-houses, &c, 

 by hot water, may not, to a su^jerficial view, seem 

 to be of very extensive practical utility, yet an in- 

 vestigation of the principles of this branch of econ- 

 omy of heat, may lead to results of much impor- 

 tance, which the inquirer could not have anticipa- 

 ted. We hope; therefore, that our readers will 

 excuse us for dwelling somewhat in detail, on a 

 topic, apparently in some degree foreign irom the 

 great interests to which our paper is devoted. 



Those green-houses, and other repositories of 

 untimely and exotic vegetation, in Europe called 

 forcing-houses, in which fire was made a substi- 

 tute for heat of climate, had been for two centu- 

 ries, heated soZe/i/ by brick flues ; that is, by the 

 lieat given out by the blaze and smoke of burning 

 fuel. That this mode had been entirely adequate 

 to its cn<l is proved by the yijc?, that at Kew, Paris, 

 Liverpool, • Leyden, Berlin, St Petersburg 

 &c, they have been able to produce grapes in 

 winter; pine-apples in spring; and to bring 

 into flower the rarest West and East India plants, 

 and even to ripen their fruits to great perfec- 

 tion. 



When, however, the management of steam be- 

 came familiar to British mechanics, they applied 

 the surplus steam not required for their machinery, 

 to the heating of their work-shops. This soon led 

 to the employment of steam in lieating every de- 

 scription of forcing-houses, hot-houses, green- 

 houses, conservatories,' graperies, and pineries.^ 

 They were the subjects of great praise, but, never- 

 theless, a great proportion of the practical garden- 

 ers revolted at them ; not, as we shall endea\or 

 to show, from well grounded objections to the use 

 of steam, but from the ahiise of it ; because, instead 

 of using it as an nuxilian/ power, the projectors, 

 vain of their discovery, insisted on its being an 

 universal remedy. It was like a quack medicine, 

 able to cure, equally well, all diseases, however 

 opposite their character. 



The Hon. J. Lowell has, in our opinion, discov- 

 ered and put into useful operation, an important 

 improvement on the European modes of heating 

 hot-houses, &c. After having derived much 

 pleasure from the inspection of this improvement, 

 we requested and prevailed on Mr Lowell to 

 furnish us with the following notices, of the 

 origin and progress of his mode of heating hot- 

 houses, &c. 



" I imported the horticultural transactions of 

 Europe, and found the parties divided with regard 

 to the comparative value of heating by steam and 

 by smoke flues. I said to my friends, these gen- 

 tlemen are so angry with each oilier, that they do 

 not perceive that the two modes of heating green- 

 houses, &c, may be very easily combined. Why 

 should the advocates for smoke flues, be so obsti- 

 nate as to reject the prodigious power of steam ? 

 And why should the new advocates for steam, re- 

 ject the heating effects of the smoke and the flame, 

 which must be at least equal to all the heat which 

 thev can force the ignited fuel to part with to the 

 ketiles ? 



" I resolved to dejiart from the practice of heat- 

 ing by steam only. I placed my boiler within my 

 house, instead of following their examjile. This 

 alteration alone was a saving of one ton of coal. 

 I then resolved to continue my smoke Jliies in ad- 

 dition to my steam pipes. I soon perceived that I 

 had gained most important benefits. I found that 



of one hundred and tweiily days of winter, there 

 were not more than thirty in the whole (one quarter 

 pari) in which it was necessary or even useful to 

 raise any steam whatever. Here let nie stop to 

 explain this. Steam will not rise to heat a steam 

 pijie, till your water in the boiler is lieated to 212 

 degrees. But before that happens, your brick flue 

 has been so heated as to raise the thermometer iu 

 your house, to GO degrees at least. Now as this 

 degree of heat is not only sufficient for your ])lants, 

 but a better temperature for their health than any 

 other, being about the average temperature of 

 summer, all artificial heat above that point is posi- 

 tively hurt/id. The practical gardener will com- 

 piehriid me, when I say that it forces plants pr«- 

 matiinly and they are weakly and sickly. 



" Such was the state of our experience on this 

 subject, when we were told that hot water pipes 

 and reservoirs were adapted to cure all our evils, 

 and produce, not only economy of fuel but of la- 

 bor. I listened witli the deepest interest to the 

 accounts of this new discoveiy. The fact, un- 

 questionable in itself, that hot water parts with its 

 heat more slowly than any other substance, struck 

 my imagination. I resolved at once to try the hot 

 water system ; but, instructed by experience, I 

 resolved that if I adopted it, I would not give up 

 the smoke flue, which / kneie had given out, at 

 least, as much heat as either steam pipes or hot 

 water pipes could do — or in other luid plainer lan- 

 guage, in using either hot water or steam pipes 

 exclusively, you gave up one half of all yourpovv- 

 er — you reduced at once one pound of coal to half 

 a pound. 



" Having made these replies to your inquiries, I 

 beg leave to ask you to republish the observations 

 of Mr Paxton, principal giu-dener to the Duke of 

 Devonshire at Chatsworth. His remarks were 

 made, iu reply to strictures of Mr Loudon, as to 

 liis, Mr Paxton's, refusal to adopt the hot water 

 system. Of Mr Paxton's abilities, Loudon hitnself 

 speaks in high terms. The public will judge of 

 the comparative capacity of the two parties to de- 

 cide, when they learn that Mr Loudon is an archi 

 tect and Mr Paxton, wliom he praises, has the care of 

 nearly //«>(?/ green-houses, hot-houses and pineries, 

 that he is the practical manager of one of the mo.st 

 extensive establishments in Great Britain. Mr 

 Paxton urges the .same objection which I have 

 urged to hot water apparatus, when used exclu- 

 sively, that it is a wasteful expense as to green- 

 houses and graperies, because there is not more 

 than twenty or thirty nights in the year, when you 

 ai-e obliged to get up your hot water pipes to their 

 maximum. 



"I balieve fully, that if our improvemennt should 

 ever be admitted into Great Britain, it would su- 

 persede the present modes of heating. Its essen- 

 tial superiority consists in this : the upper pipes 

 without flanges, are laid along the top of the 

 smoke flue, and the lower are returned in contact 

 with the same flue. Thus the heating of the water 

 pipes is very essentially accelerated, and their 

 cooling as essentially retarded. At Rnxbury, on 

 the famous 27th of January last, the thermometer 

 in my hot-house did not fiiU below 5G ; and at 

 Gardiner, Me. in a very large green-house heated 

 on the same principle, on the same day, the ther- 

 mometer within the house stood at 39°, while 

 without it sunk to the degree of 20 below 0." 



" P. S. I ought not to conclude these re- 

 marks, without adding that your apparatus for 

 heating rooms, embracing as it does, the principles 



