CULINARY GARDENING. 



BOOK I. 



kind of patent hot-house as amply to recompense his talents and 

 industry. 



Reflecting upon these various improvements, in connection 

 with a great number of experiments and observations^ made at 

 Dairy*, I conceived the plan recommended in my treatise on 

 hot-houses, for heating them ; and by thinking on the subject 

 in a free and unprejudiced manner, and studying the nature of 

 heat, I conceived the idea of an inner roofing, an invention of 

 immense use in their management. These improvements were 

 first tried experimentally upon an old hot-house in Broughton 

 Park Nursery, Edinburgh ; where, although several things were 

 ill executed, still the effect was so astonishing, as to encourage 

 me to prosecute the ideas I had conceived. I have now, after 

 considerable practice in designing, and seeing them constructed, 

 fixed on improvements which appear to me much superior 

 to any adopted, or at present known in Great Britain. They 

 are perfectly simple and practicable, and will not only save 

 much fuel, but greatly lessen the risk of over-heating or over- 

 cooling the house, and will also require much less attendance 



* Dairy, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, was then the property of John 

 Mawer, Esq. an eminent horticulturist and ground architect, who had at that time, 

 179 6, the most extensive range of hot-houses and steam apparatus in that part of the 

 country, as well as a very extensive practice in planting, building hot-houses, 

 forming gardens, and laying-out grounds. The author had the honour to be his 

 draughtsman and general superintendant for the three years previous to his death, 



