ECONOMY IN FUEL. 



OF THE four methods of heating buildings de- 

 scribed in The American Garden for De- 

 cember, only three are available in a green- 

 house or other building used for growing 

 plants. Such buildings may be warmed by a flue, 

 by hot-water pipes or steam pipes. The hot-air 

 system used in dwellings cannot be used on account 

 of the leakage of gas and the difficulty of conveying 

 the hot air through a long, narrow building. The 

 flue system is cheap, but dangerous and not effect- 

 ive in a building over forty feet long. The hot- 

 water and steam systems are, therefore, the best 

 for all horticultural structures. 



WHAT THE MANUFACTURER DOES FOR US. 



The manufacture of hot-water and steam heating 

 apparatus has been carried to a very high degree of ex- 

 cellence, and our best makers of boilers now give us 

 apparatuses that economize the heat of the fire as far as 

 it is practical in our present form of plant houses. It is 

 not the intention here to describe any particular form 

 of boiler. Every maker of standing clearly compre- 

 hends the scientific requirements of a good boiler, and 

 they all seek to give the greatest amount of heat radi- 

 ating surface in the greenhouse with the highest econo- 

 my of fuel. Some obtain their results by one form of 

 boiler, some by another, and if the buyer will carefully 

 examine the boilers with regard to their heating surface, 

 fire space and circulation of water in the boiler, there 

 will be no difiiculty in selecting a good boiler, whether 

 it be for steam or hot water. The setting up of a large 

 boiler and an extensive system of steam or hot-water 

 pipes is a matter that should be left entirely to the 

 manufacturers. They know (or should know) the ex- 

 act amount of pipe needed to heat a given surface of 

 glass roof, or, in other words, to heat a given number of 

 cubic feet in a greenhouse. 



CLIMATE, EXPOSURE AND SPECIES. 



The things the maker does not know and which the 

 gardener must know are these : The climate in which 

 the house stands, whether near the sea or inland, 

 whether north or south ; the aspect of the house, its 

 shelter from cold winds, and most important of all, the 

 kinds of plants to be cultivated in the building. These 

 points must be carefully considered and a proper esti- 

 mate made of the number of pipes required. For in- 

 stance, a tall grape house where grapes are merely 

 gently forced in late spring, on cool, cloudy days in 

 April and May needs only a few pipes. A stove for 

 tropical plants or a forcing house for cucumbers may 

 need four or five times as many pipes and a proportion- 

 ately longer boiler. No formal rule can be laid down 



in this matter, because aspect, climate and shelter are 

 elements that have to be considered, and these may 

 vary with every house and may even vary greatly in 

 houses only a few miles apart. 



STEAM OR HOT WATER. 



The matter of selecting steam or hot water must al- 

 so be decided by the gardener. For cool-houses the hot- 

 water system is clearly the most economical and for hot- 

 houses the steam system is the most effective, and when 

 used on a very large scale, as when rose or other houses 

 two or three hundred feet long are occupied, is prob- 

 ably the cheapest in first cost and the most economical 

 of fuel. Exact data on this point cannot be easily ob- 

 tained, and, while both S3 Stems have their advantages, 

 it is not possible to state with absolute certainty which 

 is the best. Such a question could only be settled by 

 actual trial of the two systems side by side by trained 

 scientific experts. We can only use in actual practice 

 this general rule, that steam is best for large and very 

 warm houses, hot water for cooler and smaller houses. 



ON STOKING THE FURNACE. 



In both these systems the universal fuel has been, 

 until within the past few years, hard or soft coal. Now, 

 after the steam or hot-water boiler has been set up, the 

 whole question of the economy of fuel depends on the 

 man who tends the fire. It is the stoker who controls 

 in many a florist's establishment the whole matter of 

 profit and loss. The coal bill is in every plant house 

 the one item that demands the greatest attention. The 

 labor bill may be much larger, but labor is profitable in 

 direct proportion to its cost. The more men in a plant 

 house, the more plants produced. Coal must be used 

 and the less coal required the less the actual cost of 

 producing the plants. If one ton will carry one thous- 

 and plants one month in a certain house and in another 

 house the same ton will carry two thousand plants, 

 clearly the cost of growing plants in the second house is 

 one-half of that in the first and the margin of profit is 

 so much the larger. 



The stoker does not have a happy lot. There is dust, 

 heat, cinders and plenty of dirty work. It is not ex- 

 actly a nice trade and, too often, the work of the 

 stoker is left to the lowest intelligence on the working 

 force. In too many horticultural establishments the 

 work of stoking is left to anybody who is willing to do 

 the work for the lowest wages. It is said there are only 

 two people can make a fire — a fool and a philosopher. 

 Now it is not good business to employ any one but a 

 philosopher. Not your conventional fellow in glasses, 

 who potters about over scientific nothings, but a man of 

 sense who understands why and how coal burns, a man 



