223 
THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
and warmed anyhow, will produce things to 
beat those who have all the fiddle-faddle modes 
of heating, and moistening, and shading, that 
can he thought of ; and it is questionable 
whether the gardener whose master is always 
changing lias half the chance of growing things 
well, that a man with a good old-fashioned 
house has, whose plants and plans arc un- 
disturbed. Not that we object to any one of 
the modes of heating w r e have seen, and we 
have seen pretty nearly every contrivance at 
present in use. Messrs. Loddiges have a 
contrivance by which, in a few minutes, they 
moisten their whole orchideous house, by 
creating a shower of very fine rain in every 
part. A pipe goes all round the house, full of 
very minute holes ; on letting water into this 
pipe every foot of the whole area is covered by 
the shower. This may be very well for large 
concerns, but, with a good hand-engine or 
syringe the same effect may be produced in 
different degrees, at different parts of the 
house, and this is an object w r hen we are 
obliged to grow all the orchideous plants in 
one house. The roof of the orchideous house 
should not be too lofty; the less number of 
feet there are to warm the less expense there 
is to warm it, while the number of plants may 
be the same. Another reason for a low roof is, 
that many plants may be grown on stumps of 
trees, hung to the rafters, or in wire baskets of 
moss and crocks and mould. The majority 
of orchideous plants require moist air to grow 
and bloom in, but have a season of rest 
which does not require less heat so much as 
less moisture ; so that the house ought to be 
divided by a partition, one being thus easily 
kept dry, while others, which are growing, 
may be kept moist. We do not object to 
the house being heated by a tank placed in 
the same position as a tan-pit ; but provision 
should be made for covering it close when 
required, or covering and uncovering any 
one part of it. All that is required is to 
make a partition down the middle of the 
tank, to within a foot of the end, away from 
the supply, and quite close at the end where 
the supply is given. These tanks are variously 
built; some with brick and cement, others with 
iron stone or slate. The size must be regu- 
lated by the size of the house. If it is made 
to hold about nine inches depth of water, it 
will be enough : upon the whole, perhaps, 
iron will be the best material. The par- 
tition down the middle is for the purpose 
of guiding the return of the water, which is 
supplied boiling hot in one of the partitions, 
traverses to the end the vacancy between the 
end of the partition and the end of the tank, 
enables it to turn round and return to the end 
it started from, but in the other side of the 
partition. 
The boiler has two pipes, one at the top, 
and the other near the bottom. The supply 
is from the top pipe, while the cooled water 
returns through the one at the bottom. 
This is the best, supposing the object were to 
have everything as simple as possible. 
Now, there may be fifty ways of modi- 
fying this simple contrivance, but the prin- 
ciple is the same ; the boiling water will 
force itself up to the top, and the cold water 
will come to the bottom ; and if the tank was 
half a yard distant from the boiler, it would 
make no difference in that particular. The 
orchideous house, then, may be of the same 
form as the hot-house, with more heating 
apparatus, because there is no tan-pit, and, if 
hot-water tanks be used, there ought to be a 
flue round the outside, or hot-water pipes, 
for the tank alone would be insufficient. It 
is a common practice now to have open 
gutters for the water, instead of iron pipes. 
These are covered up, but may be uncovered 
the whole length if desired. These gutters 
are the same as a flue without a top, and 
at one end the supply pipe from the boiler 
opens into it, while, after traversing the 
house, and perhaps communicating with a 
tank in the centre, the other end communi- 
cates with the bottom part of the boiler, to 
return the cooled water. How the shelves 
are placed, or the plants are disposed, is 
completely a matter of taste, and totally im- 
material to the plants themselves, which are 
usually removed to the conservatory while 
in flower, and are rarely visited by company 
in the orchideous house itself. An orchideous 
house may, in fact, be called a moist stove, 
while the stove or flower-house, with a tan- 
pit, may be called a dry one. 
THE FLOWER GARDEN.* 
Mr. M'Intosh, who was some years gar- 
dener at Claremont, and is now with the Duke 
of Buccleugh, at Dalkeith, where he had 
to form a garden of many acres, is to all 
intents and purposes a practical gardener, and 
the author of the present, as well as other 
works, which have proved useful to his readers 
in all grades of society. While so many trashy 
works on gardening are every season emanat- 
ing from the press, it is quite a relief to fall 
upon anything of a truly practical nature. 
Mr. M'lntosh commences his w r ork with the 
foundation of gardening, the plans of gar- 
dens after the Italian, French, Dutch, and 
English fashions. He then treats of the soil ; 
then of the manures ; and goes on to garden 
* The Flo-wer Garden, &c. published by Wm. S. 
On- and Co., London. 
