Cbbbuabt 15, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



847 



A G>mer in the Basket Room of the A« L. Randall Co., Chicago. 



eight days, when the temperature has 

 dropped to 75 degrees, tbe covering of 

 soil about two inches deep is put on. 

 The soil should not be wet, but should be 

 in such a condition that it will pack 

 firmly without baking and should be 

 beaten evenly and smoothly with the 

 back of a spade. The bed should by all 

 means be curtained, both as a shade 

 from light and as a means of prevent- 

 ing evaporation as much as possible. 

 After the soil is put on it will cause a 

 rise in the temperature of the bed, prob- 

 ably to about 80 degrees, but it will soon 

 begin to come down slowly and after it 

 has fallen to 70 degrees, a covering of 

 hay or straw should be put on to try 

 and maintain this heat in the bed as long 

 as possible. After the bed has been 

 spawned about four weeks, examine oc- 

 casionally and when the mushrooms be- 

 gin to appear remove the covering, as 

 they would work up through this and 

 make it very inconvenient to pull them. 

 Try and obviate the necessity of water- 

 ing until your crop has been gathered, 

 by maintaining as moist an atmosphere 

 around your bed as possible. This can 

 be done by spraying under the bench 

 where your bed is and over the covering 

 with water at a temperature of 80 de- 

 grees, the frequency of application be- 

 ing regulated by the amount of evapora- 

 tion. If this is excessive, it may be 

 necessary to spray three times a day, 

 but twice, or even once, might be suf- 

 ficient. In harvesting your crop don't 

 pull the mushrooms straight up, but twist 

 the stem around in the soil so as to break 

 it away without disturbing the mycelium. 



After the crop is gathered, give a good 

 watering with water at a temperature of 

 80 degrees, cover over with an inch of 

 tresh soil, beating down as before. Put 

 a good covering over the bed and treat 

 as for the first crop and in the course of 

 from four to five weeks a second crop 

 will appear, this second crop often prov- 

 ing about as good as the first. 



W. S. Croydon. 



Greenhouse Beating. 



HEATING FRAME WITH STEAM. 



I would like to know how I could build 

 a hotbed, so that I could heat it with 

 steam and how the steam pipes should 

 be arranged. The hotbeds would face 

 south. M. F. C. 



What 18 known and generally under- 

 stood as a hotbed is made of ferment- 

 ing material, stable manure, leaves, or 

 refuse hops and the heat germinated by 

 fermentation makes the hotbed. What 

 you are attempting would better be called 

 a heated frame. 



A number of sash heated by steam 

 or hot water is a most useful adjunct to 

 any commercial place. Often they are 

 heated by a separate heater, but there 

 is no difficulty about heating them with 

 steam if that is the method of heating 

 your greenhouses. From the nearest 

 point of your steam pipes, run a 1%-inch 

 pipe, one to your frames, and on enter- 



ing the frames let the pipe be a foot 

 above the surface of the bed. Let it 

 drop gradually, if only one inch in 

 twenty feet to the furthest end. There 

 will be very little chance to make pro- 

 vision for return of condensed steam to 

 the boiler or main return in greenhouse 

 and don't attempt it. At the extreme 

 end *of the heating pipe in the frame 

 put a 1-inch valve. It will be neoesflary 

 to open this valve two or three times in 

 twenty-four hours to let out any con- 

 densed steam, but that will be little loss, 

 and if two or three feet of the end and 

 the lowest point of the pipe should con- 

 tain condensed steam it would still be 

 hot. It would also be well to tap on a 

 pet cock near end of pipe to let out air 

 and admit steam. Of course it will be 

 necessary to protect your steam pipe 

 thoroughly if it has to pass underg^oimd 

 or in the open air from the greenhouse 

 to the frame, but those things will sug- 

 gest themselves to you. W. S. 



WILL HEAT THREE HOUSES. 



We have what is called a brick-yard 

 steam boiler ten feet long, three feet 

 four inches in diameter; thirty -eight 

 3-inch flues. How many houses will 

 a boiler like this heat upt It is good 

 for 125 pounds of steam. Houses are 

 180 feet long, twenty -nine feet wide; 

 walls are four feet six inches high ; ridge, 

 twelve feet, even span. To keep the houses 

 at 55 degrees to 60 degrees, with the 

 weather at the coldest at zero, how many 

 rows of 1-inch pipe will it take to a 

 house? Would a steam trap help to 



