804 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
[Dzc. 5, 
at the beginning, upon a principle which Nature may 
claim as her own. The dissertations on potting are 
thrown to the wind ; a thousand casualties incidental to 
other systems of cultivation are obviated in this. Expen- 
sive buildings are not necessary to produce fruit which 
the most costly structures could never boast of. Surely 
we are verging upon a great revolution, not only in the 
cultivation of this noble fruit, but in much that is ex- 
pensive and now apparently abstruse in matters of gar- 
dening. In Pine-growing I have undertaken to show 
that such is the case, and I presume that I have 
good ground to maintain my standing. I know that 
a host of opponents are already in arms to knock me 
down ; but I have still a few facts to reveal which 
may be found more invulnerable than arguments based 
upon vain and conceited notions, or on the mysteries of 
ancient gardening.— Mirabile dictu. 
THE AMATEUR GARDENER. 
Ovr-poon PROTECTION FROM Fnosr.—There are many 
productions i arden which occupy a rather 
dubious position between those which are hardy or 
tender, and to these the best care of the gardener 
should be given. It is undesirable to load pits and 
frames more than absolute necessity demands, on ac- 
count of the great trouble entailed by the operation ; 
besides, we should aim at training plants to bear the 
severity of our winters. Ascertain which roots or 
shrubs may be left to themselves, which will require 
protection in frames, and which are doubtful. It is in 
reference to the latter class that I propose to offer a few 
Observations. 
In mild winters the most tender Roses will sustain 
little injury, even if fully exposed to the weather ; the 
same may be said of Wallflowers and similar plants ; 
but a severe season will disfigure or kill some of these, 
and therefore precautions must be taken. But pro- 
tecting must not be begun too early. I yesterday saw 
a garden strangely metamorphosed by conical piles of 
straw and short dung either tied round grieving stems 
of Fuchsias, &c., or laid at the roots of other things 
presumed to be tender. Now this was done before any 
frost had appeared, and with the thermometer above 
temperate. This is taking time by the forelock ina 
wrong sense, for all wrapping up is to be avoided 
altogether if possible, and only to be resorted to in the 
last extremity. If a little care is taken to have pro- 
tecting materials in readiness, you may safely wait for a 
first frost, which rarely does much injury ; and then, if 
the day indicates the recurrence of the dreaded visitor, 
proceed with your operations. Bear in mind that even 
this should not be done till the middle of November, for 
frosts before that time are generally innocuous in refer- 
ence to the tribes of plants I am now speaking of. 
If it is desired to protect roots, conical heaps of 
some dry substance may be used. I believe all Fuchsias 
will do well with this treatment. If Moss is abundant, 
and your garden not large, some placed over these 
heaps and fastened by little sticks will make you more 
secure, and enliven the dulness of the beds. I am 
inclined to think that Dahlias would be more safe in 
this way than any other. It is certain that these roots 
often perish from various causes when taken up and 
stored away ; while one accidentally left,in the ground 
often sprouts in the spring. If about 6 inches of some 
protecting material was placed over the crown, I have 
no doubt the roots would be found in a fine growing 
state for spring forcing. If you have any Dablias not 
taken up, try a few of them, and record the result for 
future practice. 
Roses and other plants with woody stems which run 
any risk, should have the soil banked up over the roots, 
and a little Moss spread over them as above directed. 
The branches may be tied up with straw. But the plan 
I adopt, and which I think was alluded to last season, is 
very preferable to any other I know of. I plant cuttings 
of Laurels and other evergreens among the branches of 
the trees I wish to preserve, by which a gay and lively 
appearance is added to the security afforded. Of course 
this can only be done where evergreens are plentiful ; 
but I would suggest that they should be grown for this 
purpose in every garden of any size. I have some 
round beds about a yard and a half in diameter, 
filled with tender Roses, which I have just sub- 
jected to the following process:—Having a large 
number of layers of Laurestinus, well rooted, and 
not knowing exactly where to plant them to ad- 
vantage, I have put them in these Rose beds, in 
the spaces between the trees. I expect the follow- 
ing advantages from this plan :—First, the Laurustinus 
and Roses will mutually protect each other in severe 
frosts. Second, the mixture will have a fine effect when 
the Roses are in bloom. , Third, the young evergreens 
will be nursing up fora year or twoas well there as 
anywhere else, and when too large for the beds may be 
permanently removed. I think this plan may be ad- 
vantageously adopted in many cases, and young trees 
now located in the nursery made to increase the 
beauty of the garden, and afford protection to more 
tender objects. 
Many frozen plants may be preserved from injury by 
preventing their being thawed by the rays of the sun. 
This may be effected by throwing mats over them, and 
not removing them till the frost is gone. Tender 
climbers against walls should have a mat lightly nailed 
over them. As a general rule, coverings must be re- 
moyed as soon as possible from all growing stems, such 
as Roses, Fuchsias, &c. ; if this is not done in mild 
weather they will push forth their buds prematurely. 
—H. B. 
*.* The writer will thank his readers to substitute the fol- 
clearing up is postponed until Nature calls too loudly to 
be any longer neglected, and the appearance of Snowdrops and 
Crocuses infuses new energies into the before torpid proprietor.” 
THE TROUT PEAR. 
Synonymes.—F orellenbirne, Truite. 
* Lone as I have collected fruits," says Dr. Adrian 
Diel, * and searched the gardens in the neighbourhood 
of the Rhine, furnished with French sorts, I have found 
no fruit like the Trout Pear. We may, therefore, proudly 
call this a national variety, which most probably origi- 
nated in Northern Saxony. It is a valuable addition to 
our stock of November and December Pears, which 
may compete with the best French dessert kinds, ripen- 
ing at the same period, and far surpassing them in the 
length of its keeping in perfection, and in its beauty.” 
He adds, * could we phlegmatie Germans make as much 
fuss about novelties as the volatile French do, the Trout 
Pear would have acquired, ere now, the highest cele- 
brity.” 
Vermilion, 
speckled 
Lemon. 
eae 
It has obtained its name from its beautiful trout-like 
speckling. The spots are numerous, circular, bright 
gray, margined with crimson. The flesh is white, ex- 
ceedingly smooth and fine-grained, buttery and melt- 
ing, with a pleasant vinous flavour ; in perfection in 
November, and will sometimes keep till January. The 
tree is of vigorous upright growth, bearing early and 
abundantly. The shoots are glossy, of a fine violaceous 
dark red, sprinkled with few whitish grey spots, and 
towards the extremities very slightly woolly ; leaves 
iddle-sized, ovate, hat cordate at the base, 
acuminate, the apex slightly deflexed, their margins 
finely denticulated ; petioles, 1 to 2 inches in length ; 
flowers middle-sized, opening early ; petals roundish. 
It is adapted for a wall or espalier, and, probably, for 
a standard ; at all events the singularly beautiful ap- 
pearance of the fruit, the smoothness and delicacy of 
its flesh, and the productiveness of the tree, will entitle 
the latter to a place in every good collection.—R. T. 
POLMAISE HEATING. 
In my last paper on the diffusion of heat, and which 
related more especially to this subject as far as it affects 
publie buildings, I clearly proved, that if the acknow- 
ledged laws given us by the greatest philosophers, and 
founded on the most elaborate experiment, be true, it is 
useless to attempt to heat the air by radiation, and that 
to attempt to diffuse heat equally by such means is to 
act in direct opposition to our physical knowledge. 
The necessary effect of giving full force to these laws 
will be at once to sweep out of all our public buildings 
every radiating surface, whether stove, flue, or pipe, as 
being (so far as their radiating power is concerned) 
either useless or objectionable, as disturbing that uni- 
formity which it should be our especial aim to preserve. 
Methinks I hear the shriek of horror that such an 
announcement will occasion, but despite of the cry 
either of ignorance, or interest (and it is hard to say 
which is the loudest), the law is true, and the result will 
be inevitable. The methods hitherto employed for the 
diffusion of heat have been planned either with a total 
or partial disregard to scientific knowledge. The results 
have been necessarily either total failure or but partial 
success, and they must be prepared to give way toa 
system whose principles, founded on nature and philo- 
sophy, are so sound as to defy attack, and which re- 
quires only time and experience for its full and success- 
ful development. With these prefatory remarks, 
pass to the second and important consideration—can 
heat be diffused equally, and by what means ? 
If the term equal is employed in its strictest sense, 
possibly we shall look in vain, but if the term is restricted 
the object of our search will not escape us, for the 
inquiry is very limited. We have but three forms of 
matter, with which we are acquainted, each possessing 
powers of diffusing heat ; and if uniformity is our object, 
surely we cannot for a moment hesitate to employ that 
form of matter most rapid in its motion, namely, a gas 
or air; but we shall also find that it will be necessary, if 
we hope to attain our end, to subject even this power to 
certain conditions. We require uniformity of heat; if 
we look to Nature will she afford us a specimen of equal 
distribution? Certainly not; and though she has 
directed our attention to the proper agent to diffuse 
atmospheric heat, she has not subjected it to those con- 
ditions which should insure any approach to uniformity ; 
such was not her object. Providence has used radia- 
tion as the first heating power, it is, consequently an 
unequal power, the result being that our globe is un- 
equally heated ; surely an equally heated atmosphere 
around an unequally heated globe would have been an 
imperfection such as we should look for in vain among 
Nature’s perfect works ; for what would have been the 
result? In some localities the ground heat would have 
been great, while the atmospheric temperature was low ; 
while in others, the atmospheric temperature would 
have been much in advance of that of the soil ; to stimu- 
late the roots by bottom-heat to produce a flow of sap, 
such as the leaves could not dispose of, or to encourage 
a weakly foliage by atmospheric temperature, such as 
the root could not support, was no lesson of Nature’s 
teaching ; the advantage of a bottom-heat, 20° or 30° 
in advance of the air-heat, was left for gardeners to 
discover; and as uniformity of temperature is the 
object of our search, we must turn away from Nature, 
where it could not have existed without imperfection, 
remembering, however, that she has instructed us as to 
the means ; but if we seek help from Science she not 
only bears testimony to the truth of Nature, and teaches 
us to use the medium that can diffuse heat most rapidly, 
but to subject it to the conditions that will ensure 
its doing so. 
And what are those conditions under which this 
medium of diffusing heat, namely the air, moves 
with the greatest rapidity. Is not the velocity of, 
an aerial current dependent on the diff 0 
the temperature of the two places between which it is 
flowing? and consequently, if we desire to warm the 
air ina building most rapidly, we shall first take to the 
heat that portion which is coldest. Does not common 
sense teach us the same lesson, that the air which re- 
quires warmth the most to make it agreeable is the 
coldest of all, and that this is consequently that which 
we should first take to the stove, and not that which is 
hottest but one (see “laws of heating,” page 707). If 
we consider a portion of air leaving the poles, and 
flowing towards the equator, supposing no other force 
to disturb its course, it would acquire warmth on its 
way, becoming warmer and warmer, till it became the 
most highly heated portion of the earth’s atmosphere ; 
in like manner the coldest air of a church gradually 
would flow towards the stove, till it came in contact 
with it ; but this is not the condition under which the 
air can be made to move with the greatest rapidity. 
It certainly is a means of limiting the difference of tem- 
perature ; a means sufficient for the purposes of Na- 
ture, where uniformity is not required, but only a given 
amount of distribution, where it is even a part of the 
design that one part should be highly heated while the 
other is frozen; but it is not the condition under which 
we must place the air if our desire is to approximate to 
uniformity of temperature. Philosophy says, since uni- 
formity can only result from extreme rapidity of diffu- 
sion, provide a way for the coldest air of the building to 
flow first to the source of heat ; and such is the principle 
of Polmaise, it not only employs the form of matter that 
can move most rapidly, but it compels it to travel at 
the extreme of its speed ; unlike other systems of air 
heating it provides the means not only of most rapidly 
and uniformly heating that portion of air which it is re- 
quired to heat, but of heating that only ; and as facts 
are daily proving the truth of all my theoretical pre- 
dictions, so will experience prove that the most econo- 
mical and perfect diffusion of heat in public buildings, 
can only, in our present state of knowledge, be attained 
on the Polmaise principle ; and this leads me to notice 
the manner in which this principle may be carried out. 
The first thing is to provide the means of the coldest 
air in the building passing first to the heat, than which 
nothing can be more easy ; for as the coldest air is of 
necessity on the floor, so if there is a space below the 
level of the floor into which it can fall it will do so, and 
thus a drain (being made with one end opening to the 
source of heat, and the other opening at the extreme 
end of the building on the floor) will be a channel, by 
which means the coldest air can at once pass to the 
heat, and will do so. There is little doubt that the 
velocity of the flow will be influenced by numerous cir- 
cumstances, such as the gradual inclination of the cold 
air drain (or return pipe as it may be called) towards 
the source of heat, the relative size of the drain itself ; 
on all these points experience will prove our only guide, 
but let us examine whether there are any practical dif- 
ficulties opposing our“course, for instance in churches. 
Where these are newly erected the aisles will form a 
convenient locality for the cold air drains; in many 
cases where the floor of the aisles is formed of stone 
this may be made to form the roof of the drain itself ; 
but in many old churches where it has long been the 
sad custom of giving up a portion of that building for 
the dead which was only intended for ue living, which 
a E Nip 
to mean the greatest attainable amount o: y 
as d to carry d ere they never 
