1877 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
63. 
holes in the corolla of a heath. Mr. Darwin re¬ 
cords the following; observation, made twenty years 
ago, and published at the time in the “Gardeners’ 
Chronicle.” “I was led to observe, during some 
weeks, several rows of the scarlet Kidney-bean, 
whilst attending to the fertilization of this plant, 
and daily saw humble and hive-bees sucking at the 
mouths of the flowers. But one day I found sev¬ 
eral humble-bees employed in cutting holes in flow¬ 
er after flower; and on the next day every single 
hive-bee, without exception, instead of alighting 
on the left wing-petal, and sucking the flower in 
the proper manner, flew straight and without the 
least hesitation, to the calyx, and sucked through 
the holes which had been made only the day before 
by the humble-bees ; and they continued this habit 
for many following days.—Now how did the hive- 
bees find out so quickly that holes had been made ? 
Instinct seems to be out of the question, as the 
plant is an exotic. The holes cannot be seen by 
bees whilst standing on the wing-petals, where they 
had always previously alighted. From the ease 
with which bees were deceived when the petals of 
Lobelia JErinus were cut off, it was clear that in this 
case they were not guided to the nectar by its 
smell, and it may be doubted whether they were 
attracted to the holes in the flowers of the Phaseo- 
lus by the odor omitted from them. Did they per¬ 
ceive them by the sense of touch in their probos¬ 
cides, whilst sucking the flowers in the proper man¬ 
ner, and then reason that it would save them time to 
alight on the outside of the flowers and use the 
holes ? This seems almost too abstruse an act of 
reason for bees ; and it is more probable that they 
saw the humble-bees at work, and understanding 
what they were about, imitated them, and took ad¬ 
vantage of the shorter path to the nectar.” 
Why do bees gnaw holes when they might get the 
nectar in the regular way ?—No doubt to save the 
time of climbing in or out of the larger flowers, or 
of crowding their heads or tongues into narrow 
passages in small ones. From observation of in¬ 
sects working either way in certain flowers, Mr. 
Darwin judged that they could visit nearly twice as 
many in the same when they sucked through the per¬ 
forations. But then much time must be lost in mak¬ 
ing the holes, especially when they are cut through 
both calyx and corolla. So the boring would hard¬ 
ly pay except where flowers grow in great numbers 
of the same sort together. And Darwiu says he 
was long ago struck with the fact that it is only un¬ 
der such circumstances that humble-bees perforate 
flowers. If this is so, no species is likely to run 
out for want of crossing through this injurious 
habit of bees. For as long as the flowers are very 
plenty, a sufficient number will get cross-fertilized; 
and whenever they become siarcer, the bees, no 
longer stimulated by~the abundance to work in the 
surreptitious wholesale way, will enter the flower 
in the legitimate manner. 
Does any one know of an instance of the perfo¬ 
ration of any fugacious flower, any which lasts only 
one day ? If no such case occurs, it will confirm 
the suggestion that the perforations are made to 
save time, and show all the more what keen and 
sensible observers bees are. 
Cheap Greenhouses—How to Heat them. 
BY PETER HENDERSON. 
In the American Agriculturist for November, 1874, 
I described and gave a diagram of a method of 
heating a greenhouse, 20 feet wide by 100 feet long, 
by the ordinary smoke-flue and with only one fire. 
Heretofore it had been generally believed that it 
was impossible to heat a structure of that size with 
but one furnace, and few ever risked a house-more 
than one-third of the size with a single fire. The 
principle there described, although not a new one 
(as I afterwards ascertained, ah it had been record¬ 
ed in the transactions of the London Horticultural 
Society some 50 years before), had certainly never 
been generally practised, and its publication in the 
American Agriculturist has created a great deal of 
interest, and has involved me in an extensive cor¬ 
respondence. In that article I unfortunately show¬ 
ed only its sipplicatiog to that particular structure. 
which was too large and too expensive for the 
wants of most beginners in floriculture, I have re¬ 
ceived numerous letters inquiring about the appli¬ 
cation of this principle to smaller and differently 
shaped houses. Finding it well nigh impossible to 
satisfactorily reply to these queries by letter, I 
will show in this article how other houses of differ¬ 
ent designs and of smaller dimensions may be heat¬ 
ed on the same principle. Figure 1 shows three of 
the usual ridge and furrow houses, which are 60 
feet long and 11 feet wide, each with a furnace 
room, or shed, at one end, which is 12 x 33 feet. 
Of course the length may be increased or diminish¬ 
ed as desired, but this width is found to be the 
most convenient. It will be seen that the three 
greenhouses are heated by two furnaces, the flue 
being so disposed under the center benches of the 
houses as not to cross any of the pathways. This 
gives, of course, two runs of the flue to the middle 
house, and only one run each to the outside houses. 
This would in coldest weather give a temperature 
of not less than 40° to the outside houses, an d 60° 
or 65° to the middle house, which has the two runs 
of flues. This difference in temperature is indis¬ 
pensable in a general collection of plants, and the 
neglect of it is more than anything else the cause 
of failure where growers have but one greenhouse. 
It will be necessary to have the flues built as close 
to the walks as possible, so that the heat be evenly 
distributed in the two outside houses. Figure 2 
shows a greenhouse 20 feet wide by 60 feet long ; 
with furnace room, or shed, 12x20 feet. Here 
again the flues are so disposed as to avoid crossing 
the walks, being placed under the center bench, 
but as near as possible to the walk on each side, so 
that the heat may be evenly diffused throughout. 
If a difference in temperature is required in a house 
of this kind, it may be obtained by running a glass 
partition across the house, say at 25 feet from the 
furnace end, which will, of course, make that end 
the hottest. It will be seen that the principle set 
forth in my article of November, 1874, is carried 
out in both these plans, and it would be unsafe to 
attempt to heat greenhouses of these dimensions 
without conforming to it. Its peculiarity consists 
in running the flue, in each case, back to the 
furnace from which it starts and into the chimney, 
which is built on the top of the furnace. As soon 
as a Are is lighted in the furnace, the brick-work 
forming the arch gets heated, and at once starts an 
upward draft, which puts the smoke-flue into im¬ 
mediate action and maintains it; hence there is 
never any trouble about the draft as in ordinary 
flues having the chimney at the most distant point 
from the furnace. It will be seen that by this plan 
we pqt only get rid of the violent heat given out by 
the furnace, but at the same time it ensures a com¬ 
plete draft, so that the heated air from the furnace 
is so rapidly carried through the entire length of 
the flue, so that it is nearly as hot when it enters 
the chimney as when it left the furnace. This per¬ 
fect draft also does away 
with all danger of the 
escape of gas from the 
flues into the greenhouse, 
which often happens 
when the draft is not ac¬ 
tive. Although no system 
of heating by smoke-flues 
is so satisfactory as by hot 
water, yet there are hun¬ 
dreds who have neither 
the means, nor inclination 
to go to the greater ex¬ 
pense of hot-water heat¬ 
ing, and to such this re¬ 
vived method is one that 
to a great extent, 
simplify and cheapen the 
erection of greenhouses. Many old established 
florists, who have bad the old plan of flues in use, 
have changed them to the one here described, and 
with great satisfaction. The wonder is that such 
an important fact has been so long overlooked, for 
when at the time it was discovered, heating green¬ 
houses by flues was almost the only method in use. 
As some may desire 
to know the cost of 
structures like those 
above described, I 
would say that, at 
present prices in the 
vicinity of New York, 
the plan of figure 1 
would cost, complete, 
about $8 per running 
-foot, or about $600 
for the whole build¬ 
ing, 72 x 33. The 
house shown in figure 
2 would cost about $7 per running foot, or about 
$500 for the 72 x 20. This price is only for plain 
substantial work, such as is put up by commercial 
florists. The side and end walls being made of wood 
in the usual way, with cedar or chestnut posts, 
(locust is more durable than either,) and double 
boarded, with a layer of tarred paper between. 
T!H!1E MOTSEMm 
IpSIT* For others Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Early Education. 
I have just gathered a little bundle of reading 
matter to lend to a friend in another town ; and, as 
she may be supposed to be especially interested in 
all that bears upon the subject of babies, I have 
placed side by side two books, neither of them 
new, which may serve well to complement each 
other—“Ginx’s Baby” and “The Child.” The 
former, a good satire, and treating of politico-social 
economy, cannot fail to deepen in the mind of a 
thoughtful reader a sense of the danger of neglect¬ 
ing the early education of future citizens. Though 
one .cannot help smiling at the fine touches of the 
satirist, one is moved at the same time with horror 
and compassion over the condition of the lower 
strata of humanity. Perhaps London is worse than 
any American city, but we all need to be stirred to 
the depths of our hearts over the ignorance and 
misery and consequent wickedness of millions of 
our fellow creatures. If we turii from the strange 
fortunes of that typical character, “ Ginx’s Baby,” 
to Madam Kriege’s book, “The Child,” we can 
see, at least by faith, what may be the destiny of 
the human race on earth, in future ages : for surely 
we shall at last learn—if not in your day and mine, 
in some generation not far distant—the necessity 
of giving human beings a careful education in 
W 
4i 
w 
B 
Fig. 2.— PLAN OF A SINGLE HOUSE— 60 X 20 ft. 
F, R, Furnace Room , 12x20 ft.; B, B, Side Benches , 4 ft. wide ; C, C, Center Bench, 5 ft. 
wide; W, W, Walks, 2 ft. wide; S, S, Smoke-flue; C, F, Furnace with Chimney above. 
