1.—1846.] i 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 3 
NEW KITCHEN-GARDEN SEEDS.— 
No. 1.—Complete Collection, consisting of 20 
Quarts of best kinds of PEAS, and all other Seeds 
in proportion, and of’ the most approved kinds, for 
one year’s supply for a large establishment . 
No. 2.—Complete Collection, in smaller qua 
equally choice sorts ......... 
"No. 3.—Ditto, ditto, ditto.. weeds LIL 
Messrs. SUTTON & SONS have the honour and privilege of 
referring to Gardeners and Gentlemen residing at the under- 
mentioned places, who have annually availed themselves of 
this economical anı vantageous mode of obtaining the best 
d a 
“sorts of GARDEN SEEDS,.and who have expressed themselves 
in the highest Sorge pleased with the crops; viz., at or near 
dinburgh, Aberdeen, Castle Douglas, Ber- 
Wick-upon-Tweed, Newport, Monmouth, Cardigan, Carlisle, 
Carmarthen, Ludlow, Gloucester, Hull, Newoastle-upon-Tyne, 
y St. nd's, Lynn, Wolverhampton, York, Bristol, 
Exeter, Brighton, Ventnor, Plymouth, Windsor, Bath, New- 
“bury, Oxford, and many others, of whom the addresses may be 
had on application, 
Early Orders are requested and recommended, as some sorts 
“are in great demand, 
*,* Parcels delivered free to any office in London, or any 
Station of the Great Western Railway between London and 
Remittances are not required from known Correspondents, 
or from those who give satisfactory references, 
Reading Nursery, Reading, Berks, Jan. 3. 
LOXINIA PASSINGHAMII, — This intensely 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1846. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
h tena Dri 
onay, Jan, 6—Entomological . : 
Sarunvay  — 10—Royal Botanic . . J l 4ra 
WzowzspAy, | — l4—Microscopical  . l8». 
Turns is no doubt that the modern methods of 
HEATING PrANT-HOUSES are very great improve- 
ments upon those which have passed away. The 
tank system, well applied, is indeed almost as supe- |i 
ior to common hot-water pipes, as the latter were to 
flues or steam-pipes. But we should foolishly de- 
ceive ourselves if we imagined that we had arrived 
at the end of all alterations for the better ; or, if we 
thought that the shape of a boiler, or the exact 
adaptation of the surface of hot-water pipes to the 
work they have to do, were the next points on which 
attention must be most steadily turned. We be- 
lieve, on the contrary, that to this hour, with a few 
very partial exceptions, one of the most indispensa- 
ble of all the conditions to be fulfilled, when houses 
for plants are heated, has been overlooked. 
We are now able to command any degree of heat 
and'any amount of moisture. We have guarded 
ourselves against impure air and deleterious emana- 
tions. By means of metal and cheap glass, we may 
have houses as light as the day ; and philosophers 
are even striving to dissect the light itself, to separate 
the component parts of one of the most subtile of 
all natural agents, and to appropriate to the use of 
man just that part which he wants, or thinks he 
Wants, and no more. But in the midst of all these 
mechanical and philosophical appli two things 
have been forgotten, of which one is of no small 
Importance to the mass of garden lovers ; and the 
Other to the plants they rear. The gardener de- 
mands the utmost possible result at the smallest 
Possible cost. Plants require a perpetual change o 
the atmosphere they breathe. We cannot flatter 
ourselves that either -of these ends have been at- 
tained. We heat our houses well, but expensively; 
we En our plants well, butit might be done better. 
If we could dispense with hot-water pipes and all 
ihe contrivances connected with them, we should 
Save three-fourths of the cost of warming a build- 
ing. Iften pounds could be made to do the work 
of forty, that would be. no small gain to Horticul- 
ture ; and if we can show that such a result is pro- 
bable, every gardener in the kingdom will, we are 
Sure, give his attention to the best means of 
Working out the problem. Could it also be 
Proved that the effecting of one of the ob- 
Jects above-mentioned would of necessity in- 
clude the other, the question would imme- 
diately assume an importance beyond all others 
which can at present be entertained; for it is to be 
Temembered that such a matter concerns those of 
humble means infinitely more than the wealthy. 
The latter are satisfied with what is effected by the 
Costly apparatus now employed; the former have 
no apparatus at all nor are they likely to 
By them the advantage of cheap glass, or 
even glass for nothing, would be but little felt, for 
glass without artificial heat is of but small im- 
Portance in gardening. 
P n our opinion the system of heating employed at 
Polmaise, to which we last week alluded (p. 871) 
1s the most decided instance of advance in tho right, 
direction that has yet been made, By means of a 
hole in a wall, a common stove, a couple of drains, 
and a wet blanket, everything is gained which in a 
Vinery near Stirling is demanded. 
In order to save the trouble of reference we 
reproduce below * the plans of this house, as given, 
o|at p.500; but for the purpose of simplifying its 
explanation we beg to direct attention to the fol- 
lowing diagram. 
Let A B C D represent the section of a 
lean-to glass-house ; 
D be a furnace; B a 
hole in the floor ; and 
D C B an under- 
ground drain. 
is lighted in D, the air 
surrounding D will ex- 
pand and force its way || 
from D to A. At the 
same time the air at B pressing downwards into the 
flue, B C D, in order to take the place of the 
buoyant air which has escaped at D, will cause 
another current from A to B, because as the air 
passes along the drain, B C D, the loss at B must 
also be supplied by A B, or rather by the whole area 
included in A B C D. This being so, the air in 
the interior of the house will by degrees become 
heated by the mere action of the furnace D, and if 
x | that action is kept up long enough and the drains are 
properly distributed, the whole interior will acquire 
an equable temperature. It will be obvious, however, 
that this depends upon two circumstances, the one 
the position of the furnace D, and the other on the 
drains B C D. If, for example, the house were 
constructed 
without the 
drain, as in the 
at D, : 
rise and force E 
its way through the crevices in-the roof; or if that 
were impossible, it would lie in the upper part of 
the house as low as D*, while D * C would remain a 
body of unheated air. But open a ground-drain and 
rapid motion is immediately established. On the 
other hand, if the furnace be placed at A no heat 
could be introduced into the house in sufficient 
quantity to affect the interior, even although an un- 
der-ground drain were in action ; because the small 
quantity of heated air that would be introduced at, 
A would immediately escape through the roof; or, 
if drawn downwards by the sucking action of the 
ground-drain, would rapidly become cold by passing 
over the surface of the glass roof, or otherwise. 
If we now apply th ese principles to the Polmaise 
house (of which the annexed is an ideal section) 
* REFERENCE TO PLAN. 
A. The Grating, where the cold air is admitted to the stove 
from within the house. 
B. The Drain, conducting the cold air to the stove, over which e 
is the gangway. 
A Valve for admitting fresh air from without, keeping a 
healthy atmosphere within, 
D. The Stove, 
. TheWarm Air Chamber, and e the outlet from the chamber. 
. The Woollen Cloth nailed underneath a stage for plants 
which extends to within 2 feet from each end o; 
Vinery, dispersing the warm air equally through the 
Vinery, and steaming it by applying water through the 
rose of a watering-pan upon the cloth, 
G, Steps into the Vinery, 
& 
riki 
we shall see at once, by the direction of the arrows, 
how the currents of airare established ; and it will 
become evident that if the furnace D is powerful 
enough, and remains long enough at work, the 
whole interior of such a house must become so 
equally heated, or so nearly so, as to be quite suffi- 
cient for all.gardening purposes. 
There would, however, be a fatal objection to this 
plan, and one indeed which would render it prac- 
tically useless, unless it could be overcome; and 
thatis the dryness of the air which always results 
from the use of furnaces, whether open or closed. 
It is certain that by quick degrees the interior of a 
house thus warmed, would be so parched, as effec- 
tually to destroy all vegetable life ; and, indeed, to 
be unfit for animal respiration. Two extremely 
simple methods have been devised to meet this 
difficulty. The first is, to stretch over the mouth 
ofthe hole at D a blanket, extended from e to f, as is 
shown in the last diagram, and to keep it moist by 
means of worsted threads, with one end dipping into a 
reservoir of water. The other method is to connect 
the drain BD with other drains, communicating with. 
the external air and the furnace itself, so that fresh 
moist air shall be always introduced, if occasion 
should be found for it. (See ground plan, in the 
accompanying note). 
Such is the principle of the Polmaise plan of heat- 
ing, which experience shows to auswer the purpose 
as perfectly as theory would have expected. That 
itis more or less like other plans which have been 
previously proposed is true enough; but it is nof 
the worse for that, and it has, as we think, the high 
merit of doing well, with very simple and unex- 
pensive materials what others have effected less 
erfectly, at a large expense. As we have already 
stated, Mr. Murray has perfectly heated a Vinery 
by means of a hole in a wall, a furnace, a few drains, 
and a wet blanket; and we know of no one else 
who has done anything like that. He has distri- 
buted his heat by means of currents of air, instead 
of costly radiating surfaces ; he has moistened his 
air by the capillary attraction of a few skeins of 
worsted instead of expensive tanks of heated water, 
and we do not believe that he has in any way whate 
ever incurred unusual expense of fuel in doing so : 
indeed we have his own assurance (p. 500, 1844) 
that only half the usual quantity of fuel is required. 
We look upon this as an important move in the 
construction of plant houses, and upon the develop- 
ment of the principle as one fertile with endless 
practical appliances. Why, for example, should 
not a small pit be heated by means of a Jovcr's 
stove at one end, and a drain along the middle 
opening into the pit at the opposite end. But this 
and other matters connected with the subject we 
must reserve for another occasion. 
Lasr year Mr. OLDHAM, of Mansfield, was so 
obliging as to furnish many of our readers, gratis, 
with MisrEToE sEED. He is now desirous of learn- 
ing whether any of those who received it, have dis- 
covered anything new in the manner of propagating 
it; and we are sure, if they have, they will oblige 
him by communicating their experience through 
our columns, 
THE SHRUBBERY. 
Ir a definition were required of an artist, an amateur, * 
or a gardener, as to what constituted a Shrubbery, their 
answers would, in all probability, be of a very different 
character. 
The artist would insist on boldness of outline, intri- 
acy, h i g f tints, kc, The amateur 
would dwell with delight on borders crammed to suffo- 
cation with Pelargoniums, Pansies, and Verbenas ; and 
the gardener in general would insist on clumps, or. 
masses. 
However, as there are, it will be allowed, certain first 
principles of taste in this as in other matters, which 
cannot be transgressed without a sacrifice in point of 
effect, it becomes a question whether one principle 
