2 5© 



THE FLOWER GROWER'S GUIDE. 



side stages, but corrugated iron covered with spar is cheaper, also neat and suitable. 

 The central stage may be similarly constructed, or a pit formed with brick or stone 

 walls. If bottom-heat pipes are provided, they may be enclosed by iron gratings, the 

 space above them filled with tanners' bark, leaves, or other sweet fermenting material, 

 or a chamber may be formed over the pipes, with either iron or oak quartering, as 

 bearings for supporting slates. 



Heating. 



An insufficiency of hot-water pipes, and boilers which are too small for their work, 

 are common errors that ought to be avoided when making arrangements for heating 

 stoves. Having to make the water in the pipes excessively hot in order to maintain 

 the required temperature in a house, involves a great consumption of fuel, while highly 

 heated surfaces are injurious to the occupants of a house. In many cases fuel might be 

 saved, and the health of plants improved, by the addition of an extra flow and return 

 pipe to those originally fixed. Tables of figures showing at a glance the amount of 

 4 -inch piping needed when fully heated, to insure the necessary temperature in a house 

 in severe weather, are frequently included in works treating upon the subject of heating, 

 but are apt to mislead. 



For a stove, 60 feet of 4-inch piping is sufficient for every 1,000 cubic feet of space 

 to be heated. In order to arrive at the exact amount required, multiply the length by 

 the breadth in feet, and the total by the average height in feet. Thus supposing a 

 house measured 40 feet long x 18 feet wide x 12 feet high at the ridge, and the sides 

 5 feet high, the average height would bo 5 feet + 3| feet = 8^ feet, and 40 x 

 18 x 81 feet would total 6,120 cubic feet consequently 360 to 370 feet of 4-inch 

 piping would be sufficient, or about two-thirds of the amount some tables give us as 

 the correct figures. The equivalent of 50 feet of 4-inch piping is 66| of 3-inch, or 100 

 feet of 2-inch, but the larger size should always be employed where possible. 



Eoughly speaking, it will be found that four rows of 4-inch pipes, two flows and two 

 returns, taken round an ordinary span-roofed house, page 248, are sufficient, while for 

 lean-to and three-quarter span-roofed houses two flows and two returns may be taken 

 along the ends and fronts, under the staging, with perhaps a flow and return in a 

 grating- covered chamber, under the back pathway of the wider structures; or the 

 pipes may be arranged as shown in page 249. Four pipes for affording bottom heat are 

 needed in the central pit of a large span roof, or two under a narrow bed. Every second 



