12 



The Florists' Review 



Septembeh 11, 1013. 



View of the Raoge of the J. W. Davis Gx, Davenport, la., Showing One of the 600-foot Housrs. 



A GREENHOUSE POWER PLANT. 



Mechanical Aids to the Grower. 



If you did not see the caption of the 

 illustration at the bottom of the page, 

 you might take it for the power plant of 

 a street railway. Or, perhaps, you 

 would think it was the city water 

 works. But it is neither; it is the 

 boiler house and service building of a 

 florist, the J. W. Davis Co., near Daven- 

 port, la. It serves to show how large 

 a job it is to provide the heat and 

 power for the mechanical working of a 

 big greenhouse plant. Not merely the 

 fact that it is a large plant makes this 

 part of the work of so much impor- 

 tance; today there are a great many 

 uses to which the grower puts his 

 steam that a few years ago were un- 

 heard-of in the florists' business. 



In the days gone by the majority of 

 the growers turned off steam entirely 

 during the summer, cleaned out the 

 boilers and gave them a rest until the 

 cool days of autumn. Nowadays it is 

 the exceptional large grower who does 

 not keep up his fires the year around. 

 The cool evenings in many places, espe- 

 cially where there is a sea or lake 

 bJeeze, make it of great advantage to 

 have on hand a little steam, particu- 

 larly to rose growers. These have 

 found that the best preventive of 

 mildew is driving out the warm, moist- 

 ure-laden air in the early evening by 

 turning, on a little steam and opening 

 the ventilators, instead of allowing the 

 coolness of the night to condense the 

 moisture in tbe air shut in under closed 

 ventilafors. 



Putting Steam to Other Uses. 



Since the custom has become general 

 of carrying moderately high pressure 

 on the boilers, brought down in the 

 heating coils by a regulating valve, 

 the steam has come to be used for 

 dozens of other jobs than the original 

 — heating. There are several kinds of 

 pumps that can be run: water pumps, 

 fertilizer pumps, vacuum pumps and 

 pumps to return condensation to >the 

 boilers. ' 



Then there is the dynamo, to light 

 the place and furnish electrical power 

 for various purposes, the soil mixer, the 

 manure forks and the compressor of 

 the refrigerating outfit. Some growers 

 use every one or these mechanical aids 

 in connection with their b<Ml0r plants. 

 Indeed, the refrigerating apparatus i 

 becoming »lmo8t a necessity. It is ivA- 

 portant in the Imndling of the eut, sav- 

 ing especiaHy large sums in the case 

 of sudden heat waves, but big places 

 that' ^ce valley and lilies need the 

 frozen rooms for the storage of piips 

 and bulbs. Many growers who do not 



care to use their steam for power have 

 found a refrigerating plant so valuable 

 that theyi^run it with central station 

 current. 



Power Supplies Many Services. 



A plant the size of that of the J. W. 

 Davis Co. requires many kinds of serv- 

 ice that in this case are supplied by 

 the company's own boiler plant. The 

 boiler house and service building shown 

 in the illustration supplies six houses, 

 one propagating house 24x260, two 

 houses 64^^x600 and three houses 43x 

 600, comprising in all well over 150,- 

 000 feet of glass. The service house 

 itself is 50x140 feet, and is divided into 

 two sections by a wall. The building 

 is absolutely fireproof and a model of 

 thorough construction, complete equip- 

 ment and good arrangement. On one 

 side of the wall are six Kewanee 

 tubular boilers, which are shown in one 

 of the illustrations. Each of these is 

 of 150 horse-power, making 900 horse- 

 power all told. Mr. Davis speaks high- 

 ly of the Kewanee Boiler Co., Ke- 

 wanee, 111., and its output. Kawanee 

 boilers are used in all the Davis fam- 

 ily's places, at Morrison, Aurora and 

 Ottawa, 111., and in the two establish- 

 ments at Davenport. 



On the other side of the wall, as is 

 shown in an illustration, are a number 



of appliances which make one wonder 

 if he has strayed into an electric power 

 plant. There is, first of all, a large 

 dynamo that furnishes a large supply 

 of electric power. Here are also the 

 air compressor and the vacuum and 

 water pumps. 



Water Pumped by Compressed Air. 



The supply of water comes from a 

 deep well, out of which it is forced 

 by compressed air. From the well it 

 is forced directly into a large cistern 

 and from there pumped directly to the 

 mains under a pressure of 100 pounds. 



The exhaust steam from all this ma- 

 chinery, which includes some small ap- 

 pliances not mentioned, is ordinarily 

 suflBcient to heat the houses. The 

 Simonds vacuum system is used 

 throughout the plant and one and one- 

 half, pounds of steam pressure were 

 enoiigh to heat the houses in the most 

 severe weather last winter. The steam 

 main is carried across the center of the 

 houses, where there is a passageway 

 eight feet wide, and the pipe is re- 

 duced as the flows for each house are 

 taken off. The flows are carried on the 

 ];urlin posts overhead and the returns 

 on the walls. 



Sidetrack Is a Valuable Feature. 

 At the time the plant was built a 

 sidetrack was run into the grounds from 



Pumps, Engines and Machines at J. W. Davis'Co. Plant. 



