BOOK II. 



ORNAMENTAL HOT-HOUSES. 



819 



nursing the plants so raised, till they are fit for removal to the principal green-houses and 

 stoves. The partition is made to remove, in order to admit or exclude the sun's rays to 

 the back -house in spring or autumn at pleasure. 



6184. We have already stated that we 

 consider steam the best vehicle for heating hot- 

 houses of. every kind, especially where there 

 are several connected together. Thus where 

 all the hot-houses of a residence are con- 

 nected with the mansion, both the latter and 

 the former, with drying rooms, hot water or 

 vapor-baths, steaming apparatus for horse- 

 food, poultry-houses (under particular cir- 

 cumstances), and various other appendages 

 might be heated as well as the hot-houses. 

 The spare steam might be employed as the 

 first power to machinery, to raise water, to 

 drive a mangle, &c. and a gas apparatus 

 might be added, to admit of lighting up 

 the whole. Repton has given a plan well 

 adapted for this purpose. (Jig. 580.) At 

 one end of this design an aviary (1) is 

 surrounded by a conservatory (2), and 

 joined to a glass passage for flowers 

 (3), which leads successively through an 

 orangery (4), lobby (5), music-room (6), 

 library (7), print and picture-room (8), 

 breakfast-room (9), anti-room (10), din- 

 ing-room (11), hall. (12), and peach and 

 green-house (13). " The whole length 

 of this range is three hundred feet. Even 

 single stoves or green-houses may be 

 more agreeably heated in this way than by smoke-flues, which are" very generally 

 attended by a bad smell, and vapors of carbonic acid and hydrogen. A very neat ex- 

 ample of this kind (Jig. 581.) is given by Hayward. (Hort. Trans, iv. 434.) " It is 

 erected in a small conserva- 

 tory, the boiler (A) contains 

 about thirty gallons, and the 

 pipes (B, B) are three inches in 

 diameter, and so laid as to have 

 thick planks resting on props 

 (a, 6, c) placed over them, to form 

 the pathway round the house. 

 Chambers are formed round the 

 pipes, communicating with the 

 external air, by surrounding them 

 with larger pipes (c, c) ; and by 

 means of small pipes (D, D) as 

 much heated fresh air can be ad- 

 mitted into the house through dif- 

 ferent apertures (E, E) as can be 

 wished." By laying the pipes 

 with a declination of a few inches 

 from their departure from the 

 boiler till their return to it, the 

 water of condensation is returned 

 through a valve (A D), which is a 

 very considerable advantage ; but this valve is much better placed in a close box outside 

 the boiler, (an improvement made by Messrs. Bailey,) as admitting thereby of examin- 

 ing it with ease when out of repair. The air-cock (F), safety-valve (o), steam-gauge (H), 

 and water-gage in Hayward's boiler, do not differ from the usual construction. The 

 mode here described of admitting heated air, we would observe, must be used with very 

 great caution, for we know experimentally, that no mode is more liable to overheat the 

 atmosphere of the house when the fire or steam is brisk in the beginning of the night, and 

 overcool it when the fire declines towards the morning. We have the same objection to 

 Walker's Improved Construction of Hot-liouse Flues, as described (Hort. Trans, iv. 237.), 

 by A. Seton, Esq. Here a cast-iron flue is enclosed in one of masonry, and the vacuity 

 between them communicates with the open air at the stock-hole, and with the air of 



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581 



