53G 



Tlin PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



in any cliannel likely to meet the eye of the practical ^^ardencr; 

 the horticultural writers have hitherto only slightly mentioned 

 the circumstance, without entering into detail. From that 

 valuable publication, the * Encyclopedia of Gardening,' we 

 extract the following: " Steam atfords the most simple and 

 effectual mode of heating hot-houses, and, indeed, large bodies 

 of air in every description of chamber, for no other fluid is 

 found so convenient a carrier of heat. The heat given out by 

 vapour differs in nothing from that given out by smoke, though 

 an idea to the contrary prevails amongst gindeners, from the 

 circumstance of some foul air escaping into the liouse from the 

 flues, especially if these be overheated or over-watered, and 

 from some vapour issuing from the steam tubes, when they 

 are not perfectly secure at the joints. Hence flues are said 

 to produce a burnt or drying heat, and steam tubes a moist 

 and genial heat, and in a popular sense, this is correct for the 

 reasons stated. It is not, however, the genial nature of steam- 

 heat which is its chief reconunendation for plant habitations, 

 but the equality of its distribution, and the distance to which it 

 may be carried. Steam can never heat the tubes, even close 

 to the boiler, above 212°; and it will heat them to the same 

 degree, or nearly so, at the distance of one thousand, or two 

 thousand, or any indefinite number of feet. Hence results 

 the convenience of heating any range or assemblage of hot- 

 liouses, however great, from one boiler, and the lessened risk 

 of over or insufficient heating, at whatever distance the house 

 may be from the fire-place. The secondary advantages cf 

 heating by steam are, the saving of fuel and labour, and the 

 neatness and compactness of the whole apparatus. Instead of 

 a gardener having to attend to a dozen or more fires, he has 

 only to attend to one ; instead of ashes and coal, and oiher 

 unsightly objects, at a dozen or more places in the garden, 

 they are limited to one place ; and instead of twelve pottery 

 chimney-tops, there is only one, which being necessarily large 

 and high, it may be finished as a pillar, so as to have the effect 

 of an ornamental object. Instead of having twelve vomiters of 

 smoke and flakes of soot, the smoke may be burned, by using 

 Parke's, or some other smoke-consuming furnace. The steam 

 tubes occupy nmch less space in the house than flues, and re- 



