January 13, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



31 



base with red, and the wings and keel marked with the same 

 colour. Flowers from May to September. New Holland. In- 

 troduced in 1803. 



J}, rhombifolia. — A small-spreading shrub, with the branches 

 terete, and the branchlets compressed, bearing rhomboidal- 

 orbicular leaves, somewhat emarginate and mucronate. The 

 flowers are yellow : the standard with a zonate red mark at 

 the base, the base of the wings red, and the keel brownish- 



purple. Flowers from April to June. New Holland. Intro- 

 duced in 1822. 



B. tenuieaulis. — A pretty twiggy shrub, with round, slender, 

 straggling branches, and sub-sessile ovate-subacute mucronulate 

 leaves. The flowers are yellow ; the standard marked with a 

 zonate blotch of red at the base, the wings streaked with red, 

 the keel dark red. Flowers in April and May. Van Dieman's 

 Land. Introduced in 1836. — (Gardeners' Mag. of Botany.) 



GAS-HEATED BOILEE. 



Having seen many inquiries made about which is the best 

 way of heating small greenhouses, I send you a sketch of my 

 small patent gas boiler. It is formed of seven tubes, with a 

 ring of jets of gas beneath. There are seven small burners, one 

 fixed exactly under the centre of each tube. The boiler is made 

 of copper, and is 12 inches high by 9 inches in diameter ; and 



the water space is between the tubes upon the same principle a9 

 the locomotive engines. The whole is enclosed in a sheet-iron 

 case just the shape of the boiler, made to fix on the top and 

 extending down the side nearly to the bottom. This case con- 

 fines the heat to the outside of the boiler, and to prevent the 

 cold air getting between this easing and the boiler a flange is fixed. 



In the above drawing, A A are two cast-iron boxes about 

 9 inches long, and of just sufficient width and depth to admit 

 of an inch-bore pipe being Bcrewed into them. The top one, of 

 course, forms the flow and the bottom one the return. B is 

 another box which answers for the return ; is a small air-tube ; 

 D the supply-cistern, which may be placed wherever most con- 

 venient so long as it is above the highest point of the pipes, 

 whieh should be the box E ; and B is where I generally put in 

 the supply-pipe, which need not be more than three-eighths of an 

 inch thick. 



You will observe from the sketch I have four flows and four 

 returns, the surface of which is a little more than two rows of 

 four-ineh-bore pipes ; for the circumference of a four-inch-bore 

 pipe is about 144- inches, while that of four one-inch bore pipes 

 is better than 16 inches. Sometimes I put only three rows, and 

 sometimes only two, just according to the size of the house. 

 F is a 6lide for lighting the gas, which can be opened and shut 

 at pleasure. There is a tap for drawing the water off at any time. 

 H is a two-inch sheet-iron tube for carrying-off the burnt gas. 



This boiler may stand in the greenhouse and the flue-pipe be 

 taken through the roof, or, what is better, if practicable, put into 

 a chimney-shaft. This boiler contains about three quarts of water. 



I If you refer to your No. 90, at page 738, you will find an 

 I inquiry and a remark made that two three-inch pipes should be 

 I used ; and as regards heating surface no doubt the remark is 

 [ quite right j but, as a practical engineer, I must beg to say that 

 neither two nor three-inch pipes ought to be used for gas, if 

 economy is to be considered. Supposing, for example, the cir- 

 cumference of a three-inch pipe is 9 inches, 1 foot in lengSh 

 would contain 84.82 cubic inches of water. Now, if we use 

 three one-inch pipes instead of one three-inch pipe, we obtain the 

 same heating surface, and have only 28.27 cubic inches of water 

 to heat : consequently a great saving in gas is effected. I use 

 to my gas boilers one-inch-bore wrought-iron pipes. Sometimes 

 I put as many as four flows and four returns, just according to 

 the size of the house. 



I can guarantee my small gas boiler to keep the frost out of 

 a greenhouse 20 feet long by 15 feet wide for something like 

 3s. Sd. to 4s. per week. I have several fixed in Liverpool, and 

 some in Scotland ; some have been at work ever since this time 

 last year, and have been also fixed in the house without any 

 injurious effects whatever. In short, that is impossible, as alt 

 j the burnt gas is carried off. — T. C. Clabke, Eagle Foundry, 

 I Liverpool. 



AMEEICAJST ICE-HOUSES. 



Ice can be kept in large quantities during the whole summer 

 season in houses built entirely aboveground ; but where it is 

 desired to have a preserving-chamber, and to insure a suffi- 

 ciently low degree of temperature to attain good results, it is 

 indispensably necessary that the earth should be banked-up to 

 the height of Beveral feet against the outside of the building. In 

 constructing my ice-house, I took the advantage of a convenient 

 and descending spot, Bunk a pit 15 feet by 18, and from 4 to 5 feet 

 deep ; walled it up to the height of 9 feet, banked the earth up 

 to the top of the wall all around, except a space for the door- 

 way; upon the wall I put a frame 6 feet high, which gives a 

 height inside from the bottom to the comb of the roof of over 20 

 feet. I put heavy sills in the bottom, except in a space 4 feet 

 square for the preserving-chamber. Upon the sills I put a floor 

 of two-inch oak plank, and on the top of this a floor of one-inch 

 pine jointed closely. The floor has a descent of 2 inches 



towards the preserving-chamber, and it conducts the waste 

 water from the ice to this chamber. I put it in an inside frame, 

 and lined it inside ; this left a space of 6 inches between the 

 lining and the wall to fill with sawdust, and the partition 

 between the ice and preserving-chamber is also double, and 

 filled-in with 6awdust well packed. 



To complete the preserving-chamber, I first put in clean sand 

 to the depth of 4 inches, then paved it with medium-burned 

 bricks, they being preferable to hard, on account of their 

 capacity to absorb and retain a large amount of water. Pains 

 were taken to have the floor exactly level in one direction, and 

 also very tight, so that all the waste water from the ice shall be 

 conducted to and distributed regularly upon the bricks. This 

 keeps them so constantly cold as to preserve milk during the 

 hottest season for from thirty-three to thirty-six hours perfectly 

 sweet, and keeps butter very hard. One valuable feature belong- 



