October 28, 1888. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER , 
337 — 
£12 to £15 ; and Plums from prices ranging from £11 to £28, to £1 or 
£5 a ton. Apples have not materially fallen, though even in these the 
maximum has been £8 a ton instead of £10, as they were six or eight 
years ago; and importations from America, which fetched from 20s. to 
25s. a barrel, have this year sold at from 10s. to 12s. 6d. These are the 
jam manufacturers’ figures, and they indicate roughly the variations in 
the cost of fruit to the general public. Taken together with the low 
price of sugar, they certainly ought tolindicate”a very cheap supply of 
jam this winter. 
- This year has been quite exceptional, and these figures must 
be read in the light of that fact. But it is unquestionable that the 
past few years have witnessed a remarkable development in the popular 
demand for fruit, and that demand has called forth a supply decidedly 
in excess. There is general testimony to the effect that the average price 
of fruit never was so low as during the past few years. And pretty 
much the same may be said with respect to vegetables. There has been 
a great depreciation in this market, particularly in the matter of Potatoes, 
the most important of vegetables. There is a difficulty in presenting 
figures with regard to them, just as there is with fruit. Ten years ago 
there was a dearth of home-grown Potatoes, which' were fetching £8, 
£9, and £10 a ton in the wholesale market. From the year 1875 till 
1879 we imported largely from Germany, paying for Potatoes far 
inferior to our own from £1 to £7 a ton. The best English Potatoes ) 
such as ten years ago were fetching £8 or £10 a ton, are now selling 
at from 45s. to 80s. a ton, A comparatively small quantity of a superior 
kind are fetching from 80s. to 100s., but the bulk of the present supply 
are selling at from £2 to £4 a ton. Several other kinds of vegetables 
are almost equally cheap, and though in all such things wo are greatly 
dependent on seasons, there are uumistakeable and very decided down¬ 
ward tendency. 
HEATING BY HOT WATER. 
WATERTIGHT ASHPITS.—HOT v. COLD WATER. 
I wish to thank your correspondent, not only for his commendatory 
remarks, but for bringing forward the subject of water in the ashpits. 
This matter may not have been written about in the various gardening 
periodicals previous to Mr. Burton’s article two years ago, which I do 
not remember; perhaps he will say in what volume and at what page his 
notes are to be found. This, however, is not a new practice, for I 
remember having to keep ashpits full of water some sixteen or seventeen 
years ago, and have more recently had to carry out the same practice in 
other gardens. The system may not be general, it is nevertheless carried 
out in many gardens. I prefer stokiDg with water in the ashpit, if only 
for the sake of reducing the quantity of dust about the fire when cleaning 
and clinkering. If my observations have been correct the fire burns more 
brightly and clearly when the water in the ashpit is comparatively cool 
than when it is raised to a high temperature by absorbing heat from the 
fuel. The fire more resembles that of a cold frosty night, the draught 
also appears better. Cool water beneath the bars would have a tendency 
to keep them cooler than when heated vapour only reached them, the tem¬ 
perature of which it would be difficult to estimate, for it would be increased 
materially in its passage from the water to the bars. 
Again, a steady flow in and out was advised for the purpose of saving 
labour in keeping the ashpit full of water. To accomplish this under 
boilere capable of heating 8000 or 10,000 feet of 4-inch piping would 
entail considerable labour. When firing hard, even when the ashpit 
was full to commence with, say at 6 P.M., it would be evaporated long 
before the morning, hence the value of a constant flow in. This, how¬ 
ever, might be remedied by deep ashpits that would contain a good 
volume of water, but the flow in and out would be as practicable as this 
method and would insure the ashpit being kept full. If advantages arise 
from having the ashpit full of water, the bars would be benefited in a 
small degree only if empty half its time. It is to guard against this 
uncertainty that a flow in was advised. The outlet was advised to carry 
otf superfluous water ; it was not my intention to convey the idea that a 
full stream should be allowed to be constantly running in and out. This 
would mean a large waste of water, which I condemn. But it was 
intended that the flow in would be more than equal to the evaporation, 
so that a little would pass out to keep the water much cooler than would 
otherwise be the ease. It would be very difficult indeed to keep the 
water oold directly under a large mass of burning fuel, where the heat 
would be intense. The water would not enter at a lower temperature 
than 47° to 50°, and I did not for a moment think anyone would conclude 
that I intended it to remain at this temperature without absorbing heat 
from the fire above. What I intended to convey briefly was a prevention 
of those high temperatures Mr. Burton has pointed out as having taken 
place in his own practice. High temperatures cause enormous evapora¬ 
tion, and the greater the latter the more the labour required to keep 
the ashpit supplied with water, unless some such plan as I have advised 
is carried into effect. 
Where the water supply is deficient and the drainage of a stokehole 
impossible I have not, and do not, advise the use of water in the ashpit 
by a flow in and out to prove a nuisance. It would be better to 
have none. Where the stokehole is drained and the flow of water into 
the ashpit steady, it would be essential to have an outlet, so that the over¬ 
flow and evaporation would be equal to the inlet. This would keep the 
water cooler than could possibly be the case by Mr. Burton’s system. 
This is what I mean by keeping the water cool. I am of opinion that 
the cooler it is kept the better chance it will have of keeping the bars 
firm and hard. 
I may have observed wrongly on these points, and shall not be sur¬ 
prised if the conclusions to which I have arrived are proved to be more 
imaginary than real. Because I am already certain that for small boilers, 
or say those capable of heating 1500 or 2000 feet of 4-inch piping—I 
mean boilers fully capable of doing this work, not those that may be made 
to do it by hard firing only—need not have water in the ashpit. Mr. 
Burton’s boiler has worked four years on his principle with water in the 
ashpit and the bars are sound. I have a gold medal boiler that was put 
in eight years ago last spring for heating the conservatory that contains 
1500 feet of 4-inch piping, and the fire bars are perfectly sound, and have 
the appearance of lasting for some considerable time yet, for they look as 
good as they were at first. Now, in this ashpit not one drop of water 
has been employed. 
From Mr. Burton’s remarks we would conclude that bad stoking was 
the result of the bars becoming “ hoisted ” or raised out of their place, for 
if the clinkfers are the cause io his and other cases they are not in mine. 
The chief cause of “hoisted” bars is the great heat to which they are 
subjected, which causes them to expand. The majority have a small pro¬ 
jection on each side of the centre, and when the bars become jammed as 
well as the ends by expansion the remainder of the bar is twisted, or the 
whole bar is lifted out of its position. In our large boilers the bars are in 
a season badly burnt, and become so twisted that they have to be replaced. 
When new bars are cast they will be made for these boilers on a slightly 
different principle, but whether they will act remains to be proved, and 
therefore nothing further on the subject will be said at present. 
Turning again to the subject of water in the ashpit, it will be very 
interesting to me if others will state their views on the subject, for I 
have doubts whether any real benefits arise from it or not. I did not 
intend that sentence to have appeared in my piper, but it was overlooked 
when revising it for the press. No water is used under any of the large 
Cornish form of boilers used for steam purposes, and greater heat is main¬ 
tained than we frequently employ for heating our fruit and plant houses; 
in fact, I have never seen water in the ashpits of the boilers used, either 
for ships, locomotives, or any boiler for generating steam, and I think if 
the advantages arising from such a practice were great it would have been 
adopted for these long ago. The fire bars used for these boilers are thinner 
than we employ in gardens, expansion will therefore be less and the bars 
less liable to become twisted. There is something in this, I think ; what 
does Mr. Burton, “ Thinker,” and others say ? I could the belter under¬ 
stand the value of the hot vapour advised by Mr. Burton if the bars 
absorbed moisture, and contracted when exposed to the direct heat of the 
fuel, and coiled up by the increase of temperature expelling moisture from 
their pores. The bars here coil up or drop in the centre, but this is due 
entirely tc expansion. There is a considerable difference between the 
heat maintained in large boilers that are required to heat large quantities 
of pipes a good distance from the furnace than is the case with those of a 
smaller size with probably not one-third the quantity of piping to heat, 
and that perhaps no great distance from the fire. It is in these very 
large boilers only that the bars become badly burned and twiste 1 by the 
intense heat to which they are subjected. I have never known the bars in 
smaller boilers suffer to any great extent, and if they will last eight or ten 
years there is little reason to complain of them.— Wh, Bakdney. 
I HAVE been studying for three years in an economical point of view 
the “ watertight ashpits,” and after what Mr. Bardney and Mr. E. Burton 
have written I thought I may venture to give your readers my views on 
the subject. The continual wheeling into the stokehole of coke, the 
stoking, the taking away clinkers, twisted and burnt furnace bars, the 
late hours in cold weather to those on duty, the expense of coke, and 
carting from the station at inconvenient times, comprising a sum of £150 
annually, all these things determined me to make a new departure in 
our system of firing. I wrote to Swansea for a truck of anthracite 
coal. The men said it would not burn. Not to be beaten I did the stoking 
myself (but I was) and had to mix coke with the coal, I was not satisfied, 
and had watertight ashpits made with cement the length and width of 
the furnace, and 18 inches deep. The change so far has been great. We 
can now burn coal only, and from close observation wo notice that the ' 
more steam rises from the water under the bars the brigh l er the fuel 
burns in the furnace. We have learned that by drawing out the damper, 
opening the ashpit door 2 inches, the fire burns best and brightest. The 
heat from the fine glow can be retained when necessary by almost cl 'sing 
the damper. We have in use gold medal boilers and one c omm on 
saddle. I went specially last winter to St. Margarets, East Grinstead, to 
see two large furnaces that heat a large building. The watertight 
ashpits have been in use for three years, previous to that the furnace bars 
had at least to be renewed annually, costing £12 a furnace, but for the 
three past winters the same bars have been in constant use and was then 
sound. Mr. Laing informed me that a greater heat can be had now than 
before the watertight ashpits were made. Welsh coal is also used, con¬ 
sidering it to be more economical.— Albion. 
I have not seen many ashpit? under boilers for heating glass hous’s 
formed to contain water, but I know it to be a plan worthy of being 
generally adopted. Here we make our own gas, and as I have to s^e to 
