On mo2Sie?iing the Air in Hot-houses. 189 



plunged, it being free from every objection that applies to 

 ashes. Pots are easier applied and removed ; and more effectual, 

 as by them worms are completely excluded. The plunging 

 taking place when the pots required for drainage would be 

 lying idle, they may be so applied without any sacrifice. 

 Folkstone, Feb. 16. 1840. 



Art. III. On moistening the Air in Hot-houses. By T. Appleby, 

 Gardener to T. Brocklehurst, Esq. 



The successful cultivation of orchidaceous plants being now 

 almost an essential qualification for every gardener, I am induced 

 to add my mite to the many useful directions that have appeared 

 in your interesting miscellany. It is in consequence of having 

 adopted something new (at least to me) in the method of mois- 

 tening the air in our orchidaceous houses, that I am induced to 

 send you the following account of our success. 



We have two houses devoted to the culture of this interesting 

 and fashionable family of plants. They are heated by hot water, 

 one with round pipes, the other with square ones ; and, although 

 we had pools inside, and frequently wet the floors and the ^)ipes, 

 yet we still found the air much too dry. To overcome this many 

 were our projects, and in the end it was resolved to put up a 

 small steam boiler with a main pipe to convey the steam inside, 

 and branch pipes to different parts, in order to fill the houses 

 completely and equally at once with steam. This, after some 

 little failures, and various trials, we have at length happily ac- 

 complished. The effect has far surpassed my most sanguine 

 expectations. In twenty minutes after lighting the fire, the houses 

 are so filled with steam that I cannot see the plants, when I am 

 in the houses, at two yards' distance; whilst the plants themselves 

 are covered with the finest dew imaginable, and though they 

 have been immersed in this vapour twice a day, an hour each 

 time, for now nearly two months, they are not in the least in- 

 jured, but on the contrary highly benefited. Plants that had 

 been at a stand here for eighteen months are now beginning to 

 grow, while others that were sickly are now fast recovering. The 

 most delicate flowers are not injured, nor their duration shortened ; 

 whilst many species, considered difficult to flower, are now show- 

 ing buds. The benefit to those plants which are hung up in 

 baskets, or fixed to blocks of wood, is very apparent. 



I may also mention that we grow a few of the choicer stove 

 plants amongst the Orchideae, and their appearance shows that they 

 derive benefit from the vapour with which they are surrounded. 

 Some of these were infested with red spider, but this warm 

 vapour bath was fatal to the insects, as indeed was naturally to be 

 expected. 



o 3 



