Education of Gardeners. 355 



Art. XII. Hints for Experiments. 



Walls of Compressed Earth. In Mr. Gibbs's nursery, Brompton, the 

 walls of a small house or cottage are built of blocks of compressed loam, 

 about three times the size of common bricks, and laid in thin clayey mud, 

 as mortar. This building was erected under the direction of Monsieur 

 Cointereaux, a French architect, and the patentee in that country of the 

 indention. M. C. was brought over, and the building erected, at the 

 expence of the Board of Agriculture. For particular purposes, such as 

 cottages, sheds, cottage-garden walls, &c, this mode of building will be 

 found to succeed perfectly ; but unless a considerable extent was to be 

 erected, the trouble and expence of teaching labourers to execute it, 

 would, probably, be greater than the profit. Walls of this sort, however, 

 placed upon brick or stone foundations, and well protected by project- 

 ing roofs or copings, will, doubtless, endure a great length of time ; 

 and as cottage walls, being greater non-conductors than brick or stone, 

 they will be found warmer in winter, and cooler in summer. Were a 

 great extent of this sort of walling to be done, instead of the clumsy mode 

 of forming the blocks, by raising and lowering a weight, in the way piles 

 are driven, a machine might be easily contrived, by an arrangement of 

 levers, like Ruthven's printing-press ; or with Bramah's press, as recently 

 improved, so as to compress the earth-bricks to any extent, and much 

 faster, and" with much less trouble, than by the French method. We 

 noticed this mode of building in our Encyclopedia of Agriculture ( §. 2849.), 

 but were not then so impressed with the perfection to which it may attain, 

 or the uses to which it may be applied, as we have been since examining 

 the specimen at Brompton, and conversing with Mr. Gibbs. By the use 

 of Bramah's press, which will squeeze a deal board to the thickness of 

 drawing-paper in half a minute, the loam blocks may be rendered as hard 

 as ordinary free-stone, and, probably, coping-stones might be formed of 

 the same material, and rendered water-proof by dipping in gas liquor, or 

 washing over with sand and pitch, thin Roman cement, or by some other 

 simple process. We recommend the subject to proprietors about to build 

 any extent of walls or cottages, and to emigrants. 



Heating Hothouses by Gas. We should be glad if such of our readers 

 as have an opportunity, would make some experiments, with a view to 

 ascertaining how far the temperature of a greenhouse might be kept up 

 by the consumption of a jet or jets of gas, under a cover of earthenware 

 or iron, placed within the house; we know of no objection to it but the 

 expence, and, probably, that might not be an objection, when the first 

 cost of furnaces and flues, their repair, fuel, attendance, &c, are taken into 

 consideration. 



Art. XIII. Education of Gardeners. 



Oub last notice on this subject hinted at the absolute necessity of every 

 young man, who wished to rank above a common country labourer, " work- 

 ing out" his own intellectual education ; and at present we shall only add, 

 that every new occurrence among the operative classes, of society, every 

 new Mechanic's Institution, and there is hardly a week passes that there is not 

 one established in some part of London, or of the country (See The Atlas 

 Sunday Newspaper for June 11.), renders this necessity the more imperious. 

 While all other orders of the laborious class of society are raising them- 

 selves, let it not be said, as a valued correspondent observes, that gardeners 

 alone remain stationary. But our present purpose is to hint at the modes 



