HEATING BY HOT-AIR STOVES. 



215 



It is, however, with them as applied to 

 horticultural purposes that we have at 

 present to deal ; and here we may ob- 

 serve, that it appears to us to be a retro- 

 grade movement, rather than one of ad- 

 vancement in horticultural science, to 

 endeavour to reintroduce a system so long 

 ago abandoned, and so justly condemned. 

 It is now upwards of a century since the 

 original hot-air stoves were expelled from 

 the gardens of Britain, as being both dan- 

 gerous and inefficient. That they have 

 existed more or less on the Continent is 

 easily accounted for ; but even there, 

 smoke-flues, hot water, and steam are 

 rapidly banishing them from the gardens 

 of our neighbours ; and it is not too much 

 to prophecy that, in a very few years, 

 hot-air stoves for heating hothouses will 

 be talked of abroad also as things that 

 have been. 



Dr Anderson, the inventor of a patent 

 hothouse, so early as 1803, experimented 

 largely upon a mode of heating by hot 

 air ; but he endeavoured to derive his 

 heat from the sun, and to store it up till 

 required. Mr Stewart, about the same 

 time, patented a method he endeavoured 

 to carry into effect at Blackheath Park : 

 both were equally unsuccessful. The 

 highly respectable family of the Strutts of 

 Derby has for years been applying heated 

 air to forcing-houses, brought from some 

 of their neighbouring manufactories, with 

 more or less success, but in all cases 

 attended with the evils arising from too 

 much dry air, until Mr Jedediah Strutt 

 heated his houses at Belper by causing 

 the heated air to pass over water, which 

 so far remedied the previous defects. Mr 

 Penn's mode of heating and ventilating, 

 elsewhere noticed, was, as is well known, 

 a decided failure in the art of heating, as 

 well as of ventilating, and is no more 

 heard of. Dr Arnott's stove, as now made, 

 the Chunk stove, the Vesta stove, &c, 

 have all been so generally and justly 

 condemned, that we think them unworthy 

 of particular notice as regards horticultu- 

 ral purposes. 



Rivers' improved Arnott's stove. — One of 

 the great objections to metallic hot-air 

 stoves has been partially got over by Mr 

 Rivers, the well-known rose cultivator. 

 His method is detailed by him in " The 

 Gardeners' Chronicle." After stating 

 that he has for several years used Arnott's 



stoves for forcing roses, and finding that 

 the period of their duration extended 

 only to three years, he had constructed a 

 stove, of which the annexed figs. 286, 287, 

 288, and 289, are a representation, and the 

 following a descrip- 



Fig. 286. 



□ 



Fig. 287. 

 d 



tion :— " Fig. 287, 

 front elevation ; 

 fig. 289, ground 

 plan ; fig. 288, 

 horizontal section 

 through a b in fig. 

 287, showing the 

 fire bars or grating; 

 fig. 286, vertical 

 section through c d 

 in fig. 287, showing 

 the front and back 

 fire-lumps, the for- 

 mer reduced to 9 

 inches in depth ; e 

 iron pipe leading 

 to chimney ; /fire- 

 lump, placed 1^ 

 inches from the 

 mouth of the pipe 

 leadingtothe chim- 

 ney, and about the 

 same distance from 

 each end ; — this 

 causes the smoke 

 to pass round, thus 

 preventing a too 

 rapid consumption 

 of the fuel. The 

 first five courses of 

 bricks, in height, 

 are laid flat ; the 

 remaining three 

 courses are set on 

 edge." The follow- 

 ing, in Mr Rivers' 

 own words, will 

 further explain this 

 stove : — " One of 

 these stoves is 

 placed in a forcing- 

 house for roses, 

 20 feet long by 11 

 feet ; — this it is 

 more than suffi- 

 cient for ; its 

 height is 2 feet 8 inches, and exactly 2 

 feet square ; foundation, common bricks 

 and mortar; the part surrounding the 

 fire-box, which is formed of four lumps, 

 is built with fire-bricks and fire-clay. On 



Fig. 288. 



Fig. 289. 



