June 9, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



415 



Hamburgh weighing 4 lbs. per bunch, the berries as large as 

 moderate-sized violet Plums, and quite as black. Pines, too, 

 were grown there of large size, some Providences weighing 6, 7, 

 and 8 lbs. commonly, and in one instance 9 lbs. 11 ozs. ; Queens, 

 Montserrats, Antiguas, Sugarloafs, Black Jamaicas, and others, 

 were proportionately large, and this thirty years after the houses 

 were built. The flues had not cost more than 10*. each annually 

 in sweeping and repairing during that period — that is, on an 

 average. The account-books verify this statement, and I may 

 finish the Cr. part of the business by stating that the same flues 

 were in successful operation in 1858, the last time I saw them, and 

 plants certainly did come out of the houses that year which won 

 first prizes at the autumn show of the York Horticultural Society. 

 In the Dr. account of the flues in question, I find £26 10s. worth 

 of coals consumed annually, and £15 worth of tanner's bark, or, 

 in all, £41 10s. as the cost of heating. The coals were brought by 

 water some sixty miles, and the tan came nearly twenty miles by 

 the same means. In the thirty years seven flues had burst, 

 destroying something each time, and the soot in the flues took 

 fire times out of unmber, and subjected a plant or two to a roast- 

 ing temperature. I mention these flues to show what a flue was 

 when they were in their prime, when gardeners considered how 

 to build them so as to meet their wants. 



Pausing for a moment, I will tell of another kind of flue 

 erected in 1830 and now doing good service. At this period 

 they ran all their flues horizontal, and not as some people do now 

 — rising from the fireplace with one end on the floor and the 

 other on pillars, aB if the flue were too proud to lie and too idle 

 to stand. Well, the flue in question was built of common bricks 

 placed on edge ; the bottoms and covers were clay tiles made on 

 purpose, 2|- inches thick. On the top of the flue a brick was 

 laid edgewise parallel with each side of the flue, and on those 

 bricks a flagstone for a shelf or table on which to place the 

 plants. In the stone shelves openings were cut so as to let the 

 heat out of the chamber below into the house, 3 inches by 1 foot, 

 and a foot apart. By this plan the house was not soon heated 

 nor the plants roasted. I have seen good Grapes — nay prize 

 Grapes — grown in the house where this flue worked. 



But a flue as it is built now, what is it ? More frequently 

 a failure than a success. I have had a flue boiling water in a 

 saucepan after it has traversed across one end of the house, 

 melting lead where it entered the house, whilst at the other end 

 next the chimney it was neither warmer nor colder than a lamp- 

 post — so much for the absorbing power3 of brick. And all that 

 heat to keep out an ordinary winter's froBt ! I have grown 

 Eerns, stove, and greenhouse plants with flues, ripened Grapes 

 and other fruits with them, and given satisfaction to my em- 

 ployers ; but I do not like flues for several reasons — a few of 

 which are : They consume more fuel, require more attendance 

 than hot-water boilers, are soon hot and soon cool, dry the 

 atmosphere too much (causing it to be saturated at one end with 

 moisture, whilst it is like that of a malt-kiln at the other), emit 

 sulphurous vapours inimical to vegetation, are liable to get out of 

 repair, and are sure some time or other to blow up, or something 

 will happen to cause unpleasantness to all concerned. Besides, 

 when a flue becomes aged the mortar decays and the smoke is 

 apt to follow a new route. See your plants are suffocated, and you 

 feel that you are to blame for it — neglect has done it ! A gar- 

 dener cannot always find time to examine a flue ; and, if he has 

 the time, I very much doubt whether he can detect a flaw in 

 time to save his master's plants. I never could. I never could 

 tell when a brick was mouldered away out of sight at the back 

 of a flue, nor tell when an ill wind would rise. I like flues at a 

 distance, for I never felt sure of carrying my plants successfully 

 into specimens nor my fruit to maturity, and when confidence 

 in one's self is gone the worst place to look for something to 

 cause a return of it is a rieketty old flue. "We very often hear it 

 stated that flues are cheaper than hot water, and are more easily 

 tended — that is, any sort of a bnngling fellow can mind a flue 

 furnace, but it requires one with some skill to attend a boiler. 

 This is the reverse of fact. A flue furnace requires double the 

 care of a boiler furnace, and this peculiarity alone is a point in 

 fact much against flues. 



I remember having fourteen flues to attend to, and I know 

 there was trouble enough with them, and at times as many as 

 twenty-two fires fell to my lot. In winter those fires were to 

 look at every morning at six o'clock, to stoker ; if out, to light, 

 which with the aid of a labourer occupied at least half an hour. 

 Then the temperature of the houses must be seen ; but it often 

 had to be taken before the fires were touched — that is, before 



six o'clock, a piece of extra work falling on the young man. 

 Of course a minimum temperature must be had at that time 

 within a few degrees, a few too low being better than many too 

 high ; but if the temperature was wrong the head-gardener was 

 sure to come blustering, though he was silent as most when all was 

 square. Then some of the fires would want touching up again 

 before breakfast, some requiring an extra touch, and then you 

 could get yoar breakfast as content as a king. The fires would 

 now do until noon, or in bright days until 3 or 4 P.M., when 

 they must be revived, and worked up into going order by 6 P.M. 

 At 8 P.M. in ordinary weather they were made up for the night. 

 In severe weather they require attendance at 10 as well ; but in 

 very severe weather a poor fellow must sit reading marks on the 

 wall in the dark, with no light but a fire, and no books but your 

 own purchased out of a paltry 10s. per week, after satisfying the 

 craving of the stomach of a growing lad. Tou must trudge 

 knee-deep in snow to look at the conservatory fires half a mile 

 away ; and then after a walk home meeting nobody, and seeing 

 as little, you begin to muse, until, startled by the cry of a bird 

 as solitary as yourself, you hasten to throw a few coals upon the 

 fires without inquiring whether Pines, Vines, and the plants are 

 too hot or too cold, and thus you manage to get to bed when 

 your watch marks I. 



So much for flues and the little skill and attendance they 

 require. The cost of a flue depends on circumstances. Prices 

 of materials vary in different parts of the country, and carriage 

 forms an item that cannot well be estimated. The size and the 

 purpose for which the flue is intended iB another consideration, 

 but to heat a house 21 feet by 15, to be kept at greenhouse tem- 

 perature, it is necessary to have one flue all round, or at least 

 along two ends and one side, or in front, if a lean-to, and by all 

 means all round if a span . 



Fire-grate, doors, and damper £0 19 



Fire-bricks 8 4 



Common press-bricks for flue, chimney, &c 16 8 



Bottoms and covers for flue, tiles or flags 12 6 



Chimney-pot 2 6 



Ash-pit"digging 3 



Mortar, sand, and slip for fire-bricks 8 4 



Foundation for flue, materials 5 



Mason's account for building , 110 



4 16 4 



The estimate given above includes carriage of materials, some 

 of which had to be brought ten miles. All the materials are of 

 the best description, calculated to last the owner's lifetime, and 

 to cause little expense in repairs beyond sweeping, &c. 



In building flues, it is necessary to secure a good draught, 

 and that can be clone better at the fireplace than at any other 

 point along the flue. Allow the fire to rise at least 1 foot into 

 the flue from the furnace. The heated air will rush into the 

 flue, and as it will not descend, there is no danger of the flue 

 not drawing ; but if the flue be level with the fire, and then 

 rise gradually from that point, the smoke and heat will take the 

 highest point, and that being the top of the fireplace as well as 

 the top of the flue, it escapes at the door. True, it may burn 

 if the wind blow in the same direction as the flue runs, but if 

 the wind be opposite, it will blow down the chimney, and the 

 smoke will come through the ash-pit rather than go up the flue, 

 and if the latter is not smoke-proof the bouse is soon full of in- 

 jurious gases. 



Botching up a flue out of old materials, and giving an estimate 

 of the cost as a fair sample of the cost of a flue is preposterous, 

 and an estimate framed on bargains is equally deceiving. I 

 have made a flue for less than £1 to heat a greenhouse ; but 

 everything belonging to it was lying about as lumber, and it 

 only needed labour and brainB to turn this to advantage. 



Common pot-pipes 6 inches in diameter do very well as a flue 

 for small houses, and, of course, small fires, for should the pipes 

 get too hot they will crack like a clay chimney-pot. The furnace 

 may be made in the ord : nary way, fire-bricks used for a yard or 

 so of flue, and then the pipes neatly connected to it ; the joints 

 of the pipes should be made up with mortar, and the elbows con- 

 trived so that they can easily be taken out, and a piece of wire 

 run down the pipes with a kind of holly brush attached to it, so 

 that you can clean out the flue in an hour without troubling 

 sweeps or masons. A house 21 feet by 15 could be heated in this 

 way for £2 14s. — viz., glazed Bix-inch pipes, £1 4s., fire-door and 

 grate, 15s., bricks and mortar for furnace, 8s., labour, 7s. 



But the cheapest kind of flue I ever saw was made of six-inch 

 horseshoe drain-tiles placed on the bottoms as they are in 

 land draining, the joints plastered with mortar on the outside 



