128 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



November, 1917 





Greenhouse of M. Pernet, the well known French rosarian. 

 Heated in the old-time way with a brick flue running under 

 the centre bench from the furnace at one end, to the 

 wooden chimney at the other 



Taking the sectional book-case as an inspir- 

 ation, he made a sectional boiler of two de- 

 signs. One, square shaped, in which the sec- 

 tions were placed side by side. The other 

 was round, with the sections put one on top 

 of the other. 



In them, he combined the twice back and 

 forth passing of the gases and smoke, as in the 

 hump boiler; and then added another passage 

 or flue, making a three times back and forth. 

 As a result, so thoroughly was the heat ex- 

 tracted by the water in the boiler, that the 

 smoke pipe was cool enough to put your hand 

 on it. 



But still more improvements were to come. 

 The part directly over the fire, correspond- 

 ing to the bottom of the tea-kettle, was 

 made in corrugations or loops, each sec- 

 tion forming a part of the loop. This gave 

 still more economy, because it gave more heat- 

 ing surface for the flames to directly heat. 



To prove to yourself how this is, just lay a 

 string on the table in loops, like in the sketch 

 alongside. Say the distance across all the loops 

 measures two inches. Now pull the string 

 out straight and it measures close to six inches. 



If tea-kettle bottoms were made in corruga- 

 tions like a greenhouse boiler, they would boil 

 in a third less time. Strange, isn't it, that 

 someone doesn't make them that way? 



But to get back to the square sectional 

 boiler, it really has two stories. The lower 

 one contains the fire; in the upper one, are the 

 flues through which the hot gases pass back and 

 forth between their water-surrounded walls. 



Now consider that the top, sides, front and 

 back of the lower story are water surrounded, 

 as well as every one of the passages in the 

 upper one; and you can see that this boiler 

 is like a big sponge, greedily drinking up the 

 heat and sending it with great circulating 



force, into the greenhouse, in the form of hot 

 water or steam. 



Perhaps this is now as good a place as any 

 to talk about "hold-ups" — the kind that in 

 boilers mean a slumber fire. The kind that 

 holds up its end when there is little to do; and 

 is always ready to do more, when more is to be 

 done. Which statement needs explaining. 



We have reference to the way this boiler's 

 grates shake part at a time, so that you can 

 in mild weather put ashes on part of them, and 

 run the fire on the other part. It's just like 

 having a little boiler inside the big one. It is 

 decidedly more economically and easily man- 

 aged than the big fire, which — in your en- 

 deavor to keep it low enough, frequently 

 goes out? 



And now a word more in general about 

 sectional boilers. They are easy to handle 

 and set up. The sections will go through 

 practically any door and down any ordinary 

 cellar stairs. In case anything happens to 

 any of the sections, only that one section need 

 be replaced. As you enlarge your house, 

 simply add more sections to the boiler just as 

 you would add more sections to a book-case. 



Such boilers are made for either steam or 

 hot water, but by far the greater number of 

 greenhouses are hot water heated It is a 

 more equable heat than steam. It has none 

 of its intensity, none of its being either a)! 

 on or all off", and so requiring much attention 

 to preserve the uniform temperature so essen- 

 tial for greenhouse success. 



But let me caution you to make sure your 

 boiler and heating pipes are rightly propor- 

 tioned, both in relation to each other and the 

 requirements of the house. To heat a green- 

 house of ordinary sound construction — that is, 

 tightly glazed with double-thick glass — to a 

 temperature of 55 to 60 degrees at night, when 

 the mercury outside is at zero, you must have 



e square boiler 

 sections. The window - like 

 openings are where the fire, hot 

 gases and smoke travel back 

 and forth on their journey three 

 times the length of the boiler, on 

 the way to the smoke pipe and 

 chimney. The frame of the 

 windows is hollow and filled 

 with water. The round port 

 holes are the openings through 

 which the water flows from each 

 separate section to the other 



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In early fall or late spring, when only a little fire is 

 needed, just bank the back half of the grates with ashes 

 and run a fire on the front half. The grates shaking in two 

 parts, makes this possible 



These sketches, go to prove that a kettle with a corru- 

 gated or looped bottom has the same quick heating space 

 that a flat bottomed one has, three times the width. On 

 this fact is based the use of corrugations in the fire box 

 top of greenhouse boilers 



The grates on the square sectional shake half at a time, 

 which has two advantages. Shake easier, and you can stir 

 up half the fire and let the other half slumber 



one square foot of hot water radiation pipes 

 for every three square feet of exposed glass 

 and its equivalent. 



No matter how fine a greenhouse or con- 

 servatory you may have, a "greenhouse boiler" 

 is vital to its success. So do not experiment 

 with ordinary furnaces; it costs too much. 



A Neat Stake 



TV/TY only objection to growing Lilies, Glad- 

 *■*■*■ iolus, and Dahlias is that they usually 

 need staking and I object to the conspicuous 

 way in which the stakes show. Of course, 

 I wouldn't be without these grand flowers 

 even if I had to put up with the objection- 

 able stakes. In the past I have used the 

 bamboo stakes, that can be bought at most of 

 the seed stores, and while they have some 

 advantages over the usual rough stake, yet 

 they failed to exactly suit. The past season 

 I gave the subject some thought and finally 

 devised a stake that seemed to answer my pur- 

 pose, at least. The stakes of course, are of 

 different lengths to suit the heights of the 

 different flowers and the size of the stake will 

 depend on the length. For a five-foot stake 

 I found three quarters of an inch square about 

 right. At some near-by saw-mill, waste 

 material can usually be found that will answer 

 the purpose first rate and may be had for very 

 little money and sometimes for only the 

 trouble of carrying them away. I next bore 

 small holes beginning near the top and about 

 eight or ten inches apart, down to about the 

 middle of the stake. After sharpening the 

 bottom end so it may be driven into the ground 

 easily. I next paint the entire stake green and 

 lay away to dry. Instead of using string to 

 tie the plants to the stake I use green raffia, 

 being more inconspicuous than the former. 

 I at one time used tacks or small nails 

 to keep the raffia from slipping down but 

 found them more or less in the way and 

 they were continually catching on different 

 things. The holes have no bad points. If the 

 stakes are stored under cover during winter 

 and occasionally re-painted there is no reason 

 why they won't last for a good many seasons. 

 Toledo, Ohio. Walter J. Wait. 



