34r2 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
large enough to be out of danger. The conse¬ 
quence was that the fowls picked up the curcu- 
lios with the meal, and the tree being saved 
from the presence of the insects was wonder¬ 
fully fruitful. 
■- «» t > ft ■■■ 
A Base-Burning Water-Heater. 
ET PETER HENDERSON. 
For many years a great want has been felt 
for a better means of heating greenhouses, or 
rather conservatories, attached to dwellings. 
The space to be heated is usually so small, that 
the ordinary hot-water boilers in use for large 
operations have been found by amateurs too 
complicated, and to require too much attention. 
Then when the common smoke-flue was tried 
corresponding difficulties arose, it requiring 
nearly the same attention as the more expen¬ 
sive boiler. Occasionally these conservatories 
are heated by registers from the furnace heater, 
just as the ordinary rooms of the dwelling; 
but I have rarely seen any so heated wherein 
the plants looked well, it being difficult to get 
the register so placed as to diffuse the heat 
evenly. A new base-burning water-heater has 
been invented by Hitchings & Co., the well 
known greenhouse-heating firm. There is 
nothing new in the principle, nothing to patent, 
I believe. It is simply making the ordinary 
base-burning stove heat hot water so that it 
will circulate in iron pipes and heat a small 
greenhouse or conservatory attached to a dwell¬ 
ing or otherwise, exactly as our larger boilers 
do, which are not usually made on the base¬ 
burning principle. The patterns they have 
thus far made (shown in figureT and in section 
in figure 2) are 42 inches high and 21 inches at 
base, and are powerful enough to heat a green¬ 
house 10 feet wide by 20 feet long, or about 400 
square feet of glass surface, taking into account 
the front and ends. The complete cost of 
beating, including boiler, pipes, and fitting up, 
will range from $150 to $200. The care neces¬ 
sary in the management of this base-burning 
water-heater is exactly the same as that re¬ 
quired for an ordinary base-burning stove, and 
it may be safely left twelve hours without atten¬ 
tion, keeping a temperature for the plants of 
from 50° to 60° at night, which is about what is 
required for a general collection of plants. 
Figure 3 shows the boiler placed alongside the 
kitchen range, being in a basement and one 
story lower than the conservatory. It can 
either be used in this way, or placed in the 
conservatory itself as desired as will best suit. 
It must be borne in mind though, in construct¬ 
ing a conservatory, that it must be placed where 
a chimney can be used, as of course an outlet 
must be had for smoke exactly as in any ordin¬ 
ary room where any stove whatever is used. 
I am personally exceedingly grateful to 
Hitchings & Co. for giving us this contrivance 
for heating. It is a question on which my ad¬ 
vice has been asked in scores of instances, and 
I have never before been 
able to give a satisfac¬ 
tory answer. I presume 
the Agriculturist has had 
many similar inquiries, 
but I doubt much if 
all its horticultural 
savants have been able 
so well to solve this diffi¬ 
culty as is now certain 
to be done by the base¬ 
burning water - heater. 
Frightening Striped 
Bugs. — A correspon¬ 
dent of the Rural New 
Yorker thinks that a 
gentleman in Dansville, 
N. Y., is entitled to a 
pension from cucumber- 
growers for his “ dis¬ 
covery ” of a method of 
frightening away striped 
bugs. He suspends a 
quantity of paper by 
means of a string to a 
stick which is set in 
the ground at an angle 
of 45 degrees. The 
paper being moved by the wind frightens away 
the bugs. This is one of the oldest methods for 
driving off the bug, and the writer hereof saw his 
father use it at least forty years ago, and it turns 
up in the papers every few years as a novelty. 
Notes from the Pines. 
I have heard old-fashioned people use “ come¬ 
uppance” to express compensation or what i 3 
due to one. I have had a “ comeuppance,'” 
and it is a just one, if it did result in the loss of 
A Valuable Shrub. —A few months ago I 
had a warm word of praise for the Double¬ 
flowering Crimson Thorn. If there was a plant 
upon the place that I 
petted and admired and 
gloried in it was that. 
Some of the older 
branches had a disagree¬ 
able coccus upon them, 
and the new growth had 
multitudes of plant-lice. 
It is the way with all 
Hawthorns to have all 
possible insects, a pecu¬ 
liarity which, if nothing 
else did, quite unfits 
them for hedge plants in 
this country. Some¬ 
thing must be done, and 
recollecting that I had 
on hand an untried 
syringe that the maker 
had sent, and that there 
was in the box some in¬ 
sect-killing soap, I told 
the boy to get the syringe 
and use the soap ac¬ 
cording to directions. 
He did so, and whatever 
may have become of the 
insects the Hawthorn 
is dead past all re¬ 
suscitation. On the whole I am rather 
glad of it. It serves me right. If I am par¬ 
ticular about any one thing, it is never to 
take any preparation, nor to let any one in 
whom I have any interest take auy, unless I 
know exactly what it is composed of. More 
than this, I will not allow any “ cattle food” or 
any medicine to be given to a horse or chicken 
unless I know its precise ingredients. I have 
ridiculed the English fondness for Gishurst’s 
Compound, Fowler’s Insecticide, Phytosmegma, 
and all that quackery, and here in a moment of 
haste, to do the thing that was nearest at hand 
I used a soap that I knew nothing of, and killed 
my pet plant. I hope if I ever do such a foolisii 
thing again I shall suffer worse loss. How any¬ 
one can use a secret preparation on man, beast, 
or plant I don’t understand. I stick to the doc¬ 
trine, and let the dead shrub stand as a warning. 
Perennial Phloxes is a term applied by 
florists to the garden varieties of Phlox panicu- 
lata and P. maculata ; but all our Phloxes ex¬ 
cept P. Drummondii are perennial, and the 
term as applied to these is a misnomer. They 
are popularly known, in some localities at least, 
as “ French Lilacs,” and the dealers make two 
sections, calling the taller growing ones “ pani¬ 
culate," and the dwarfer ones “ decussate,” 
which is a convenient division. In each sec¬ 
tion new sorts are offered each year, and it 
is useless to designate varieties where nearly all 
are good. They vary from pure white to deep 
crimson with all kinds of intermediate mark¬ 
ings and sh.ades. They make a fine show at a 
season when flowers are not very abundant, 
and are perfectly hardy. There is one precau¬ 
tion to be observed in growing them, and that 
is to not have them too crowded, or they will 
mildew, and by the time the flowers are ready 
to open the foliage becomes unsightly. 
IJi 
mu 
Fig. 3.— SECTION OF HOUSE AND CONSERVATORY. 
