Nerv Si/stem of heating Plant Structures. 495 



more explanation may be referred to the nearest malt-kiln or 

 corn-kiln, which is perhaps the oldest and most efficient hotbed 

 that is to be found. 



The train of ideas that led me to adopt, or rather to press, this 

 system mto our service, with the plans for its erection, and the ex- 

 periments showing its capabilities, will be laid before the public in 

 due time, to show that radiant caloric, when aided in its dispersion 

 by capillary attraction and water, is a powerful agent well adapted 

 to nurse, force, or rear any plant usually grown in English 

 ga^ens. The accompanying figure will give the labourer a 

 sufficient idea of a cucumber or melon pit; I shall therefore 

 suppose It constructed of turf and worthless timber, with spade 

 and axe only ; and as he only wants lights glazed with fragment 

 glass, (which must be very cheap, since it can be bought in boxes, 

 cut to 4 in. by 3 in., at three-pence per square foot,) and the walls of 

 the bed being turf or earth puddled, he will only want a wall-plate 

 and rafters of dressed wood besides the lights, and may thus in 

 one or two evenings erect a three-light hotbed, where he may grow 

 plants, force fruits and vegetables, and propagate florist's flowers 

 and others extensively. In short, there is no saying to what 

 extent gardening may be carried after this manner ; since all 

 pipes, flues, masonry, Sec, are done away with, and cheap rough 

 materials substituted, of which stone, where it abounds, will be 

 found the best adapted and the most durable, with which the 

 humble amateur will cheerfully grapple at all spare times, till he 

 attain the object that has hitherto been beyond his reach. 



Fuel is now the only consideration ; but it may be observed 

 that the killogie will contain a stock of fuel and dry it for its own 

 consumption, and also for the family, if necessary, as the space 

 under the bed will be considerable, and may be adapted to fuel- 

 drying. The coarsest fuel, that could not be admitted into any 

 human dwelling, will answer for the hotbed, such as the dung of 

 cattle collected off* the roads, the grassy turves by the road side, 

 black soil, sawdust, tanner's bark; but I need not enumerate, for I 

 know that where it is industriously looked after, and with a good 

 will, it will not long be wanting, especially in thinly populated 

 districts, as long as mineral fuel can be found in the earth, and 

 combustible substances on its surface. 



I could point out hundreds of situations in Scotland, England, 

 and Wales, where cottages might rise and be surrounded by 

 gardens, in the hills and moors within a day's march of large 

 towns, where the produce would meet a lively market ; a donkey's 

 panniers loaded once a week with forced potatoes produced 

 in this way and without glass (only reed covers or the like over 

 the beds), from Christmas to Whitsunday, would realise no 

 mean sum, and benefit the buyer as well as the seller, in such 

 1841.— X. 3d Sen kk 



