Ki'.r.nuAiiY in. 
COUNTRY GRNTUE^IAN’S COMPANION. 
Now, ft'w would like to affirm tliiit any lioatin® appa- 
ratus waa ao perfect as to prevent tlie loss of heat. 
What goes up the chimney goes to warm the general 
atmosphere. What proceeds from brick-work and furnace- 
doors may be nsed for giving warmth to sheds, Ac.; but 
to me, it seems almost self-evident, that tlie loss from 
one chimney must, other things being equal, be much 
less tlian from a dozen or a score. Besides, tliat chimney 
can be better attended to ; the damper can be kept just 
in the right place; the furnace-door alt tight; tlie ash- 
' ])it door with just the air, and no more, that is essential 
I to the necessary amount of combustion; because the 
I wliole thing comes at once under the eye of tiie super¬ 
intendent. Are there many who could say the same 
of a dozen of separate furnaces and boilers, under the 
general management that can, in most cases, be given 
them. If so, their lots have been pleasant ones. They 
have never required, like the more unlucky writer, to 
choke their rising choler, at finding dampers in, when 
they ought to be out, and out, when they ought to be in, 
within half-an-inch of their length; furnace-doors half 
open, that they may not require looking to so often; 
giving thus a double free outlet to waste the heat; 
and the ash-jiit door, which ought to have been shut, 
standing open in company, or, most likely, its hinges 
broken, or itself nowhere to be found. Tlie waste from 
such negligence is not little ; and it would require the 
eyes of Argus to see it at all times, to say nothing of 
prcvin'ing it. The one furnace would obviate this to a 
great extent. 
So long as the jiractice will continue of setting one 
house down hero, and another down there, there must 
be separate means of heating them ; and it would be 
great waste to place a great hulk of a hoiler to heat a 
very small house; and it would be just n,s nnudi against 
ultimate economy to use a very small toy of a thing, if 
much and rather continuous heat was wanted from it. 
I have had something to do with small boilers that were 
to do wonders, and were to cost for fuel almost next to 
nothing; but I found them both expensive and exceed¬ 
ingly troublesome, and, as a general rule, there is no 
first saving, involving a greater future outlay, than using 
the smallest boiler, and the smallest possible amount of 
piping for a defined purpose; while, in every emergency 
I of severe weather, there will be a double danger of the 
j jiipes being too hot, and the boiler giving way. 
I The power of a boiler will be in proportion to the 
; surface exposed to the fire; tlie rapidity with which it is 
boated ; and the (piickness w'illi which that heat is trans¬ 
mitted to the pipes. Boiler-makers are so awmre of this, 
that whether made on the saddle, or on the conical form, 
the inner and outer sides are placed so close together as 
to contain no great (Quantity of water betw'oen them. 
Now, without indorsing what iVIessrs. Weeks’ say of 
their boiler, the slightest inspection of it w'ill at once 
convey the idea that its peculiar construction, and the 
mode in which it is jilaced, present a very large surface 
to the direct action of the fire. The father of the ])rc- 
sent Mr. Weeks was, 1 believe, the inventor of tubular 
boilers. ’I’hese were generally made in the shape of a 
parallelogram, open at one end, the other end being 
pipes; the bottom, top, and sides the same; the open 
end being the furnace-door. I found these very easily 
worked many years ago—much more easily tiian boilers 
generally in use at that time. The boilers of the 
present Messrs. Weeks’ are formed of a double row of 
tubes or pipes, and arranged in a circular instead of a 
square shape, and they stand perpendicularly, instead of 
being laid down horizontally. A very correct repre¬ 
sentation of this boiler is given in the advertisements. 
' It is three-feet-and-a-balf in diameter and five feet in 
height; the double row of upright pipes being fixed, top 
and bottom, at the circumference of the circle, leaving 
. an open space in the centre to receive the fuel easily. 
' which is put in by opening a round lid at the top. 
I Both these rows of tubes stand quite free of the wall. 
; What may bo considered the bars of the fire-place, are ; 
' merely part of the boiler, being also pipes. Even when ' 
\ the fire is very low, as when I saw it, it is evident that 
j its heat would rise about and round the whole of these 
live-feet upright tubes, because placed directly beneath 
them. The fire was quite bright, though the damper 
! was almost close in, and about the sixteenth-of-au-inch 
I of an opening was perceptible at the ash-pit door. 
; One of the strongest objections I have heard to the 
I use of such a one-boiler system—and a very strong one 
it is—is the danger and the consequences of such a j 
j boiler bursting and going wrong. 1 confess, that until j 
! used to it, I should not sleep soundly with the reflection 
j that all the inmates of these many houses might be 
‘ sacrificed by the insecurity of the boiler. But small 
I boilers sometimes go wrong, and crack and burst, and 
there is mischief in consequence. Now, the remedy is 
more easy of application in the case of one boiler than 
in that of a dozen or twenty, namely, having a spare 
, boiler to work in the case of such a contingency. If for 
a moderate-sized establishment, a fifteen guinea boiler 
would be sufficient, the placing of a second, so as to 
be connected with the same main flow and returns, and 
to be worked when necessary, would be but a small per 
centage for security upon the whole outlay; and without 
j such an arrangement, I should not like to have a number 
of valuable houses depending on one boiler. 
I Our friends may now form their own opinions. In 
unison with the remarks made, my present impression 
is, that where glass-houses are, or can be, so arranged in 
groups, the heating of them from one furnace and boiler, 
I instead of many, but having one in reserve, is a move- 
, ment in the onward direction, combining elegance, 
efficiency, and economy. There is a region of cloudland 
! hanging over the capabilities of boilers of dill'erent 
I shapes, which can only be dissipated when clearly tried 
against each other by a disinterested party who has 
sound knowledge in heating matters. 
I will merely add, whether auj-^ thing owing to the 
eilectiveness of the heating, or not, that all the plants, 
hard wooded and soft-wooded, in greenhouse and stove, 
were clean and in excellent order at .Messrs. Weeks’. 
'J’he show-house was elegantly arranged, and the beds 
I bordered with margins of Ivy. There was some beautiful 
' ))ottery-ware, for standing and sus})ending, brought from 
Germany by Mr. Rosenberg, and ornamental pots fitted 
I for parlours and drawing-rooms. R. Fisu. | 
' WOODS AND FORESTS. 
{Continued from jiujie hu'k) 
IMPROVING OLD PLANTATIONS, 
j It is really very distressing to an active mind to see ' 
^ so many acres of woodland, in Britain, either sorely j 
neglected, or sadly mismanaged. 'The number of letters i 
that I have on this subject, requiring advice and in- ! 
formation what to do with neglected woods, is really j 
astonishing. No one in the practice of woodcraft could l 
believe the amount of ignorance throughout the length ' 
and breadth that exists. It has been the practice of j 
numbers of owners of estates to order their manager, 
alias agent, to plant laige breadths of ground with 
timber-trees; but it is a melancholy fact, that after the 
trees were planted, they were left to take their chance, 
j with a kind of forlorn hope, that, perchance, they might 
do well. Perhaps, some twenty years afterwards, a few 
might be found that had made a little progress; then 
the question comes — 'This wood has been neglected, 
and has grown very unequally ; what is to be done with 
it? 'There is a group as thick as a nursery-bed, twenty 
or thirty feet high, with nuked stems not much thicker 
