SS 
38—1846.] 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
627 
Ec ume ee 
NEW SEEDLING STRAWBERRIES. : 
J MYATT & SONS have selected from their stock 
* of seedlings the following varieties, which are now ready 
for sending out 
YATT’s GLOBE, large and fine flavour, per 100 30s. 
»  Mamworm, very large .. Pu yj s. 
»  Prourric, early and great bearer ,, 21s. 
Hooprn's SEEDLING, early ° 2 
I s. 
The above selection are quite distinct, and well worth the 
attention of growers. 
arly orders will ensure strong plants for fruiting next 
Season.—Manor Farm, Deptford, Sept. 19. —— 
ROSES. 
WILLIAM WOOD and SON have now published a 
new and enlarged edition of their ROSE CATALOGUE 
for the Autumn of 1846, and Spring of 1847, which they will be 
Proud to furnish gratis on appl ion. 
N.B.—The Autumnal flowering ROSES 
Woodlands Nursery, Maresfield, near Ui 
are now in fine bloom. 
ckfield, Sussex, Sept.19. 
POLMAISE HEATING. 
DAVIES having proved the above mode of heat- 
* ing Horticultural Buildings to be far superior to hot 
Water in ev: respect, being less expense erecting, and more 
safe iu working the apparatus, heis now prepared to undertake 
the fitting up of Polmaise Stoves in any description of builc 
at little more than half the cost of hot water, By the plans 
how adopts, the stove can be placed in any part of the house, 
and the heat will be equally diffused.—Larkfield Nursery, 
Wavertree, Liverpool, Sept. 19. 
PEs SEEDLING PELARGONIUMS OF 1844 
L ND 1845 
ng, 
h 
A Deseriptive Catalogue of the above, with directions for 
their cultivation, may be had in exchange for 4 postage-stamps. 
Worton Cottage, Isleworth. 
E NEW PINK. 
NORMAN'S “HENRY STEERS,” purple laced, 
€ fine form ; fine long pod ; well laced and constant, 
sent post free on receipt of a Post-oflice order on 
Norman feel great confidence in offering the above, 
ured it will give satisfaction. 
ir select Show Carnations, Picotees, Pinks, 
iE on prepaid application enclosing 
d 
one stamp.—Bull Fields, Woolwich. 
The Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1846, 
MEETING FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK. 
Farpay, Oct. 3--Botanical . . . . B 8 
„Tr is the invariable fate of every new application 
of common well-known principles, that it is in the 
first instance pr d to be inexpedient ; then, 
when its expediency becomes manifest, its novelty 
ìs assailed ; and finally, when the darkness of preju- 
dice or ignorance has been dispelled, and light 
Comes flooding in from every side, men rush 
forward to grasp the power which they cannot 
Wield, and all sorts ofmisapprehensions and misap- 
Diteations are the consequence. This is most espe- 
cially the case in England, where a barbarous sys- 
tem of education, of which the study of first princi- 
ptes. forms no part, absolutely incapacitates men 
Tom judging correctly of the commonest occur- 
rences of life, 
uch is the course that has been taken with Por- 
marsé Haare. The attacks upon it have been 
succeeded by an eager desire to employ it ; but the 
application of it is in some cases unsuccessful from 
à misapprehension of its principles, or a forgetful- 
ness of what it essentially is. Hence a great many 
plans are proposed under the name of Polmaise, 
which are but so many unconscious libels of it. The 
object of Polmaise heating is to warm air contained 
ina forcing-house by keeping it in constant and 
active motion to and from one source of heat, and 
to moisten it by compelling it to travel over a wet 
Surface. The mode of applying it is by using a 
force from without, to set in action a moving power, 
Which, from the nature of things, can no more fail 
to do its'work than the stream to flow, or the sun 
to shine, That is Polmaise. And how is it pro- 
Posed to apply this principle? By putting the 
Moving power into the inside ; by running smoke- 
flues through the inside; and by other devices 
Which not only have nothing to do with Polmaise, 
p% are in direct opposition to it. With these we 
have no concern. Hec tu, Romane, caveto! 
We do not, however, anticipate any considerable 
Sumber of errors of this sort. The admirable 
manner in which Mr, Merx has dealt with the sub- 
Ject has put it into every one’s power to understand 
the method thoroughly, if they desire to do so. At 
Cast we are not aware of more than one cause of 
Srror which is now likely to remain. This consists 
In imagining a continual supply of fresh external 
air directly to the source of heat, to be necessary, 
Or at least advantageous, Upon this subject we 
ave two communications, one of which, from Mr. 
Hazanp, of Bristol, we publish elsewhere; the 
Ser, from “ W. F.” takes a somewhat similar view. 
eon writers object to Mr. Mzxx's statement, that 
al chamber is filled with hot air you cannot also 
unless provision is made for the 
| air (p. 596). And yet this is 
. “W. F? considers it to be “arrived 
reasoning, and to be directly contrary to 
This plan, which it is said must totaliy 
ne adopted in his house, and he will 
Ure to add, in many uthor houses in England. 
3t by false 
facts” 
vent 18 the o 
; There is a furnace in the basement; behind is an 
| air chamber into which the ezfernal air is conti- 
,nually flowing, and from thence continues its 
| course under a long stone passage into the hall, 
warming the house in its progress by means of 
gratings through which it issues. And instead of 
the stove “being exhausted of all its heat by the 
increasing, exactions of the icy wind,” he can assure 
us that he frequently remonstrates with his servants 
at his house being ¢oo hot, when the reply often is, 
| “There is hardly any fire, sir, but the wind blows 
in at the air-holes so strong we cannot keep the 
heat down." And that, too, in the very coldest 
weather, and amidst the hardest frosts. 
To all such objections, and to those of Mr. 
Hazard and “W.F.” in particular, Mr, MEgx makes 
the following reply, to every point of which we 
would beg most particular attention. 
* When I wrote the article for the Chronicle of 
the 5th September, I did it with the full conviction 
that I should arouse the storm ; I was perfeetly 
aware that there were many houses in this country 
heated by hot air, and yet on erroneous. principles. 
I knew the penalty of exposing error, but I trust 
that as I have not been drowned by the water, so I 
shall neither be shipwrecked by the wind. It. was 
excellent sport for the lovers of air-heating to see 
the hot-water system attacked, exposed; and the 
arguments (no, the opinions !) of its advocates re- 
futed ; but no sooner by a sort of erratic movement 
do I change the scene of my evolutions, than dis- 
trust follows applause, and the performance which 
looked very well at a distance, is awkward near at 
home—I have already trodden on two gentlemen's 
toes! 
“To be serious : it is suddenly found that air- 
heating is not necessarily Polmaise; and I, the 
champion of the latter, am suspected of being an 
enemy in disguise. The Air-king has killed the 
Water-king, but his subjects are to fight for the 
spoil. Let us remember we have been companions 
in arms; and before entering the lists, I wish espe- 
cially to thank Mr. Hazanp for the publie expres- 
sion of his approval of the manner in which I have 
conducted the previous controversy. I can assure 
him I began it for the sake of truth, I continue it 
for (what I believe to be)the same reason, and 
while my judgment may be called in question in 
things physical, I trust, in things moral, I shall still 
retain his good opinion, 
* Before passing to the points on which Iam 
attacked, I would remind your readers that the suc- 
cess ofa plan does-not necessarily prove its prin- 
ciples to be the best and the most true. Success is 
comparative. The hot water admirers appealed to 
their success as a proof of the truth and goodness 
of their principle. I ask your readers to judge 
how it has served them; and though success is a 
most valuable evidence, Polmaise founds its claim 
to truth not only on its success, but on the evidence 
which nature and philosophy afford in its favour. 
Again, facts! facts! are brought before me. Many 
things called facts are fictions; but, what is more 
common, many facts which should be the foundation 
of truth are, by misinterpretation, made the data for 
error! Let us now see how these principles 
affect my opponents. 
“< W. F? says, I have arrived, by false reasoning, 
at a result directly contrary to the real facts. This 
false reasoning he has forgotten to expose ; may I 
beg him to point to the false step, the unsound 
position, the error in the argument, the illogical 
deduction? Will your readers believe that while 
air is material, it wants the main characteristic of 
matter, namely, bulk, the property of occupying 
space, and that a given space can therefore only con- 
tain a given bulk of matter, whether solid, liquid, or 
gaseous ; they would assuredly believe that any so- 
called fact, attempting to disprove so evident a 
truth, was a fiction. But, in this instance, the fact 
is as stated; it does not disprove the position ; it 
proves it ; it is the false explanation of the fact that 
leads to error. * W. F/s* house is heated after the 
exact manner I had described, and because his 
house is heated by cold air flowing over a hot 
Stove, and passing into it, he infers I am in 
error in stating that hot air will not flow into 
a room or building already crowded with it. Your 
correspondent's house is not crowded with it, and 
therefore it flows in! I suppose he has chimneys in 
most of his rooms—considerable ventilators these, 
especially with a good fire at the bottom ; doors, 
windows, &c.; and I must take the liberty of stating 
that if he had read my statements more carefully, 
he would have found that in exactly his case, 
I admitted, for I could not deny, a certain amount 
of success; the escape was either provided or 
allowed, and warm air did flow in. 
* He may possibly say that, therefore, my state- 
ment was a useless one—that I supposed a case that 
would never occur. Since * W. F.' likes facts, I 
willfurnish him with one. A gentleman's house, 
20 years' ago, was heated on principles similar to 
those of your correspondent. There was one 
room, a mineral gallery, which it was especially 
desired to warm. Into this the hot air refused for 
some reason, to enter (Mr. Hazard will see the 
room did not leak enough) until—until —— a 
window was opened! and then when the * escape 
was provided, the warm air flowed in. An open 
window was inconvenient; it was proposed to carry 
a draught back from the room to the stove. The 
conditions of Polmaise were fulfilled ; the room 
became perfectly warmed ! Fifteen years, I am told, 
has this monument of the only true mode of dif- 
fusing atmospheric heat been in existence, without 
attracting attention, or exciting an investigation of 
its principles! 
“ W. Fs’ house was not the place in which the 
| Plan totally failed, it was only extravagant; in that 
| class I placed it. It was in hothouses that it was 
jsaid to have signally failed ; it was in the hot- 
| house, not the dwelling, where the iey exactions 
of the wind exhausted the stove, overcame its 
efforts till, to use the expression, made use of to me, 
“Mr. Penn’s plants were frozen before his face? It 
succeeded (to a certain extent—to an extent to 
satisfy your correspondent) in his dwelling, because 
too much was not required of it; the air of the 
| dwelling was air under circumstances not likely to 
be cooled below 409 F.; many fires and warm 
chimneys probably were in,and ran through the 
building ; its rooms of six sides had many of them 
doubtless, only one side or end exposed to the in- 
fluence of the external air; and even that through 
a9 or 14 inch brick wall, notoriously a bad con- 
ductor. But is this the condition of a hothouse ? 
If a span roof, 5 out of its 6 surfaces are exposed to 
the weather; if a lean-to, 4; protected only by 
a thin piece of glass, and this, though a bad con- 
ductor, often admitting free escape of warm air 
between the laps, which will be most exposed to 
the opposing influence of cold ? which, therefore, 
will require most heat to maintain its temperature ? 
Is the fact of a horse drawing a cart any proof that 
he will draw a house? it is a question of degree ; 
it was never asserted to me that hot air would not 
warm a dwelling-house, neither have I asserted it. 
I have asserted, that it would not warm a building 
except under conditions; those being, that air 
| should pass out as airpassedin. Ihave proved the 
| truth of this assertion by one fact, namely, the 
| failure in the mineral gallery and subsequent suc- 
cess ; but it has been asserted that the plan applied 
i to hothouses signally failed ; I believe it, because it 
is quite reasonable, that a plan comparatively success- 
ful, under one condition, should fail under another, 
and that the ‘icy wind? which would only flow over 
thestove ofthe dwelling at a moderate rate, because 
it could only pass into the dwelling as some passed 
out, would be able to abstract sufficient warmth 
from the stove to supply the air of that dwelling, 
with the moderate amount it required; while the 
icy wind which flowed over the stove of the hot- 
house, and could find a free escape the moment it 
reached its roof, travelled at so rapid a rate that it 
was unable to absorb from the stove sufficient 
caloric to provide the vast amount required, under 
those cooling conditionsin which a hothouseis placed 
in winter! So your correspondent must allow me to 
repeat my assertion that the stove was exhausted by 
the unceasing exactions of the icy wind. n 
“Now as to the charge made against this mode of 
heating, of extravagance by external currents. Ex- 
travagance, like success, is comparative; and if 
two and two make four, I will presently prove its 
extravagance compared to Polmaise. A room con- 
tains 1000 cubic feet of air at 40° ; it is required to 
heat this air to 60°; two plans are proposed, one 
by which some of this air must be let out, and then 
to bring in other air at 20°, having just passed it 
over a stove to heat it to 60°; but we shall not be 
able on this plan to heat the whole 1000 cubic feet 
up to 60°, till all that at 40° has been got rid of, 
and replaced by that which was 20° and is heated 
to 60°. In truth, instead of taking the 1000 feet 
at 40°, we prefer to take the 1000 feet at 
20°; we prefer to impart 40° of calorie in 
lieu of 20°. Polmaise does the reverse, and conse- 
quently at just one-half the cost. 
“Much that I have now stated will also apply to 
Mr. Hazanp's objections, and I think his expres- 
sion of difference arises from some misconception 
either of my reasonings or plans. He thinks I have 
thrown over the best feature of the *Great 
The * great fact’ I take to be this: that Mr. 
Ray heated a Vinery, by taking the cold air out 
the house and bringing i back warm; this is the. 
foundation of the plan ; it is this which renders it 
natural; itis this which renders it philosophical; 
it is this which renders it economical ; it is this and 
Fact! . 
Mor- — 
this only which renders it coeval with the universe « — 
