204 
tflE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January ft. 
[We do not kno'.v of finy firm that would excliange your 
pilies, &e.; hut if the gas could be got at all reasonably, why 
not place several strong jets below your boiler, instead of 
fire, and you would need to change nothing. Horae 
bachelors lind it cheaper to boil their coffee-pot with gas, 
instead of ligliting a lire. We believe previous nuiuliers 
contain as much as is known on heating by gas.] 
IS LESS OR MORE LIGHT ADMITTED BY A 
RIDGE-AND-FURROW GLASS ROOF? 
“Having lately liad several arguments w'ith gentlemen 
respecting tlie construction of horticultural buildings on the 
ridge-and-furrow system, as to whether more or less light 
is obtained by adopting if, I bhould feel greatly obliged if 
you, or some of your numerous readers, or correspoirdents, 
would favour me with their opinion on the subject, practically 
demonstrated.— John Pannkui,.’’ 
[We fear that the practical demonstration of this would 
leave the matter mucli as we find it. The fact is, the mere 
quantity of light admitted is not so much the question as 
the time, and the mode of its admittance. Suppose a house 
faces the south exactly, and is a lean to roof. The sun 
strikes it most powerfully at twelve o’clock, and for some 
time afterwards. This is rather desirable than otherwise 
for some tropical fi’uits that demand the most intense light 
that the gardener cair give them. Many of the plants 
which we cultivate under glass, though rejoicing in con- ! 
tinned light, can hardly endure the mid-day sun without 
shading, and this shading encourages mere growth at the 
expense of ripening the wood and fruit. Row by the ridge- 
and-furrow system we can, to a great extent, liave a subdued 
light at mid-day without shading, when the sun is at the 
brightest; and we can have a more direct, brighter light, in 
the morning and afternoons, than we otherwise would have 
were the surface of the glass upon a jdane. Further than 
this we have not had sufficient experience, nor made a stif- 
ficiency of experiments, to enter more fully on the subject. 
Peiiiaps some of our coadjutors and correspondents will 
give tlieir- opinion. We shall be much obliged Iry their so 
doing.] 
GROWING VINES IN ROTS. 
i 
“ My predecessor made preparations for growing Yine.s in 
pots, and now I am jrlaced to cai-ry it out by hook or by 
crook. I find the canes ai'e three years from the eye, but j 
not very strong- Last year he allowed them only twelve- 
inch pots, which are much too small. Last week I took a 
dozen of them and shifted them into eighteen-inch pots. I 
was tempted to remove a quantity of the old soil from the j 
roots as it looked very bad. "What I wish to know is, will 
the siiifting and the stirring of the roots in removing the 
old soil be much against them bearing a crop this year? 
I intend to commence the first week of .lanu.ary.—A Con¬ 
stant Readki:.” 
[We have had very fair crops of Grapes in twelve-inch pots, 
some sixteen months from the inserting of the bud. AYe 
would, for early work, like good rods in the twelve-inch pots 
quite as well as those you have sldfted; for if the drainage 
; was all right, we would remove a portion of the surface-syil, 
I and top-dre.ss and use manure-waterings fre(]nentlv. AYe 
j should not at all dislike the plants you have shifted into 
I eighteen-inch pots, but we would treat them ditierently— 
namely, we would plunge tlie i)ots in a heatijig-medium, and 
cover the pots so as to keep the roots at from 00° to ?r)°, j 
while the chiics were not much above 40°, ranging fi’om that 
to 4.")'°, for a month or six weeks, and then gently move the 
buds, after the roots have commenced vigorous action.] 
HEATING A STOA'E AND GREENHOUSE. 
“In the spring of the year a gardener altered my green¬ 
house and stove, and the manner of heating them. He has 
put a covering all over the flues in the stove', and filled that 
covering with ashes for bottom-heat. Under tliis covering 
is the vacant space for a hot-air chamber, and goodness 
knows it is hot enough there. On the outside he made a hole, 
and fixed a pipe for cold air to enter, which, he said, would 
drive out the hot air through the ventilators into the stov(< j 
and greenhouse ; but, to my great suiqu-ise, I find that tlie j 
hot air comes out through the cold-air pipe ijuite strongly, and I 
hardly any goes into the stove, at least not so much as it 
ought to do, and I notice this is worse in windy weather. Is 
not this against the law of nature ? I think the cold air 
ought to prevail from the outside, and more especially as I 
have a bend down from the pipe to convey the cold air up. 
I If the bend were put mouth upwards, the hot air w'ould be 
I more likely to ascend. Gan you explain why the hot air ' 
I comes out through the cold-air pipe, or advise me what to , 
'do?—J. G.” " I 
[AVe do not clearly understand about thi.s “hot-air i 
I chamber.” Is all the Hue covered over, or only the upper ^ 
part? AVhere is the cold-air pijie fixed? to the top of the 
j chamber, or, as it ought to be, at the bottom? How many 
openings from the charaber are into the house ? How many 
cold air drains? AYe once saw such a chamber with only 
tw'o or three small ojienings, and one small pipe from the ; 
outside for the cold air to come in, and then ([uite as high | 
up as the hot-air openings, and in that carse, the expanded i 
hot air came actually <^ut at the cold air drain. It is )iot \ 
natural for cold air to ascend, but when the air in a cham¬ 
ber becomes rai’ified, and gets out, the cold air near the bot¬ 
tom will be drawn in to supply its jilace. AA'’e rather think, 
if your chamber covers all your flue, that if yon made 
more openings near the top, and a few near the bottom of 
your chambei-, you would have plenty of circulation in it, 
without the aid of your outside pipe, and there would be 
little danger of the lieated air passing through it, if placed ■ 
at the bottmn of the chamber. These openings will give 
more heat to the house, but neither will the chamber, nor 
yet the ))lunging medium, he so hot as now, if, as we ex¬ 
pect, the great heat is owing to there being a deficiency of 
outlets, and these not jn-pperly placed.] 
THI POyiTEY eHBtDIiliLE. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
(tiiF.AT Northern. .Ian, 23rd and 21th, at Doncaster. .S'ce. H. Moore, 
Ksq., Doncaster. 
Hants (South). 14th and 15th January, at Farehani. Sec. James 
James, Esq., Fareham. Entries closed December 31st, 1855. 
Kendal. At Kendal, February 1st and 2nd. Sec. Janies Geldard. 
Liverpool. Iflth, 17th, and 18th of January. Sec. \V. C. Worrall, 
Esq., 0, Low'er Castle Street. Entries closed December 24th. 
Preston and North Lancashire. Jan.gthand Ulth, at Preston. 
Sec.i. Jtessrs. Burnett, Leigh, and Hayhurst, Preston. 
N.B.— Secretaries will obUi'e us by sendhig early copies of their lists, 
I 
. I 
COLCHESTER POULTRY SHOAAL 
As onr visits and ]ieregrinations now become animal to ' 
many places, we cannot help being struck with any contrast 
that may jiresent itself, and there may be some of onr 
readers to whom a notice ot these things may not seem out 
of place. 'J’he sterner intelligence of the exhibition appeared 
last week in the shape of the Brize List, and onr task is now 
to record the salient points, and to take to the show such as 
could not or would not go. AAm. have always thought that ' 
railways have not jet understood their proper interest in 
these meetings, and we are, therefore, glad to record of the 
Eastern Counties, that while this show was open, return 
tickets were, to he had at single fares, and a crowded station 
and long trains were the Company’s fair reward. 
Last year the town and its natives were in a state of pro¬ 
found repose, except the interruption caused by the infiux of 
visitors, hut now the sound of war has reached it, the streets 
were filled with Riflemen, and when the bugle was heard, 
and their helmets were seen, an imaginative spectator, who 
had just returned from visiting the noble old Castle, might 
fancy the town was still beleaguered by the stern Fairfax. 
Last year, the etfect of the show was somewhat lessened 
by the unfavourable nature of the building in wliich it was 
held, but now there was no room for complaint on that head. . 
The market-house is admirably adapted for the purpose, I 
being light and spacious, and at a small outlay it miglit be 
made so complete as to be second to none save Birmingbani. 
