380 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ November 16, 1871. 



6 inclies apart. The Tipper third part of three of the divisions 

 of thereof to be made to open, sliding up and down. The 

 front sashes to be hung on hinges, and to swing outwards. 



The one-third partitioned-off at the east end is to be used 

 more as a propagating house, the remaining two-thirds more 

 as a general house, in which my wife will keep her plants ; the 

 gardener, probably, having but little voice in the matter, oon- 

 gequently but little responsibility. 



A, A, Ground level at back. B, e, Ground level in front. 



A, B, B, A, Side of vaults 10 feet high, 15 feet 6 inches wide outside, 



14 feet wide inside. 

 End brickwork, 3 feet high ; front f ashee, 8 feet bigb ; door 6^ feet high. 



At the back of the eastern vault there baa been carried up on 

 arches a Pigeon houf e, rifing some 25 feet from the back ground 

 level ; and through this Pigeon house the chimney-shaft from 

 the vault below has been carried, leaving a place in which to 

 carry up the chimney or pipes from the heating apparatus. — 

 W. D. Paise, Eeigate. 



[As yon wish to make the eastern division into a propagating 

 house, you are quite right in the idea of having the heating 

 apparatus there ; and all things considered, a saddle boiler 

 about 30 inches long would suit well, or a conical one of about 

 the same dimensions. There is no other mode which would 

 BO easily enable you to have more heat in the propagating house 

 with less or more in the main part of the building. In any 

 spare part of this vault in winter you might grow Sea-kale and 

 Rhubarb ; and in the contiguous vault, merely by leaving the 

 door open, you would have heat enough for Mushroom beds, 

 whilst the other two vaults woiild come in for roots, blanched 

 Balads, &c. 



The heating, too, would greatly depend on internal arrange- 

 ments. For instance, to make the most of the internal arrange- 

 ments as respects comfort and room, yon might have a 3-feet 

 bed in front of the propagating house, and a similar width of 

 platform in the general house, a 3-feet path, and then a sloping 

 stage of 8 feet for a base, which would take up the 14 feet in 

 width. For easily getting at the plants a simpler arrangement 

 would be to have a 2J-feet bed or platform all round, a 2J-feet 

 pathway, and then a 4-feet platform or stage in the centre. 

 To make the most of the propagating part you could have 

 either the one bed in front, or in the latter case both back and 

 front, heated by two hot-water pipes surrounded by rubble, 

 with sand, ashes, or cocoa-nut refuse for plunging the cutting- 

 pots in. One of these beds we would cover with small move- 

 able sashes or squares of glass extending from the back to the 

 front. The back border or platform would do for freab-potted 

 plants to be moved to the centre platform when becoming 

 established. With two T-pipes you can have two flows and 

 two returns to the boiler, one flow to go into the propagating 

 house and one into the general house, the latter fitted with a 

 throttle-valve, so that you could regulate or stop the circulation 

 at pleasure, as it will often be necessary to have heat in the 

 propagating house and to have none in the other house. Be- 



sides the hot-water pipes for bottom heat jon would need'twa 

 pipes all round in the propagating house for top heat, or three 

 pipes round the front and two ends. Two pipes in front and 

 at the ends of the other house would keep out frost. We think 

 that with your ventilators in the back wall there is no occasion 

 to have top lights to move. We should be perfectly satisfied with 

 the wooden ventilators and the moveable lights in front. — Eds ] 



McLACHLAN'S NEW PATENT %^RGE-CUTTEI?. 

 Is it not surprising that so little that is new or improved has 

 been added to garden implements ? With the exception of the 

 mowing machine, and, perhaps, Parkcs's steel fork, garden im- 

 plements remain very much as they were in the time of our 

 great-grandfathers. We all the more heartily welcome this new 

 edging-cutter, invented and patented 

 by Mr. McLacblan, Dnngourney 

 Gardens, near Greenock, and con- 

 sider it a vast improvement, in eveiy 

 respect, on the old edging-tool. It 

 has received several first-class certi- 

 ficates. As will be seen from our 

 engraving, the machine consists of a 

 small iron frame, which is set on a 

 couple of rollers, and has fixed at the 

 right side a knife of about 6 inches 

 long, the point of which is turned in 

 as a sole. This blade is fixed by 

 means of a screw, and can be set in 

 an instant so as to cut verges from 

 1 inch to G inches deep, while the 

 sole part of the 

 knife detaches 

 from the base 

 the portion of 

 edging detached 

 from the side of 

 the walk, thus 

 doing with one 

 action the work 

 '— _ which requires 



— — - ~ an edging- tool 



and a Putoh 

 hoe. This piece of simple mechanism is fitted to a wooden 

 handle, 6 feet long, and the instrument is worked by the same 

 sort of action required for Dutch hoeing. We have used this 

 machine with our own hands, and find it very easily worked, 

 and that it makes a very speedy and superior job. 



Mr. McLacblan recently bad a public trial of his invention, 

 but the competitor with the old edging-tool soon gave up ih& 

 contest. The testimony of the gardeners who saw the contest 

 is as follows : — 



" We, the undersigned, met for the purpose of proving Mr. McLach- 

 lan's edging-macliine, and find that it is all that could be desire(J 

 for the purpose, and a great improvement on the old system of edging. 

 Mr. McLachlan, with the assistance of one man picking up the trim- 

 mings, cut with the sole-knife a verge 90 yards long iu the short space 

 of 7:} minutes." 



[Signed by sixteen gardeners present at the trial.] 



The work performed by the new machine was fully twice as 

 much as was done by the old edging-tool, and a comparison of 

 the work showed the great superiority of the work performed 

 by the new one. The old tool either scatters that part detached 

 from the edging over the walk, or requires a man or boy to 

 follow with a Dutch hoe before it cm be picked up; while that 

 cut by the new one remains where it is cut, and can be gathered 

 up without disturbing the walk.— (r/ie Gardener.) 



[We are glad to notice — and the more so because it has ema- 

 nated from a gariener — a new form of an implement so much 

 needed in modern gardens, and at the same time admitting of 

 so much improvement. Gardeners, as Mr. McLachlan truly 

 remarks, do not often try to improve their tools. — Eds.] 



SINCLAIR PEAR. 

 It would be well if we could always know the exact spot 

 where the various sorts of fruits will succeed best : and it is 

 only by co-operation among fruit-growers and pomologists that 

 we shall ever be able to arrive at so desirable a result. There 

 are many fruits which when grown in the south are utterly 

 worthless, and the same fruits grown in a northern latitude 

 acquire all the excellence of some of the finest of the south. 



