February 27- THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 419 
Kew—the difference in height between Messrs. Weeks’ i 
small greenhouses and pits and the 60 feet of elevation j 
of the Palm-house, along with tho tropical heat of the 
latter as compared with the cool temperature of the 
houses in the Nursery in the King’s Road, are facts 
altogether unnoticed. 
Then follows the most astounding assertion:—“ It 
results from the foregoing statements that the apparatus 
of Messrs. Weeks, with one boiler, is doing about as 
much work as four boilers do in the Palm-houso; and 
that with three, or, at most, four boilers, such as Messrs. 
Weeks now have in use in their nursery, the great 
Palm-house could bo heated at a cost, in fuel and labour, 
of 14s. 8d. per day, effecting a saving say of £1,095 
per annum ” !! 
It is difficult to know the exact data on which Messrs. 
Weeks found their calculations. We will giant that 
they expend only 14s. 8d. per day during the winter 
months, in their nursery establishment, for fuel and 
labour. They cannot suppose that if it costs us “ £5 6s. 
per diem for the winter months,” as they express it, the 
same expenditure should go on throughout the year. 
Allowing then, for 
The winter (six) months, at £5 6s. per diem.^967 0 0 
Summer months (six), say one half. 483 10 0 
Cost for the whole year . 1450 10 o 
Taking Messrs. Weeks* mode on the same principle: — 
Six winter months, at 14s. 8d. per day ....^£133 0 0 
Ditto summer . 66 10 0 
- 199 10 0 
£ 1 , 251 0 0 
By this calculation we are placed in a worse plight 
than by Messrs. Weeks’ showing, to the amount of £156; 
for he reckons our los3 in fuel and wages at .£1,095 only. 
But let us come to facts. 
ACTUAL COST OF FUEL AND LABOUR AT KEW. 
The average yearly cost of fuel for the whole establish¬ 
ment for the last six years is. £/56 0 0 
Cost in 1846 and 1847, before the Palm-house fires were 
lighted, average for two years. 394 0 0 
Leaving for the Palm-house.^£*362 0 0 
But since 1846 and 1847 the number of fires in the 
garden has increased considerably, in consequence of 
new structures, additional dwelling-houses, the Museum, 
and fires in the Herbarium rooms and Library; so that 
the Palm-house can in no way be calculated to average 
more than £300 a-year. Thus, then, say— 
Fuel. £ 300 0 0 
2 stokers. . 91 0 O 
Night attendant for eight months . 32 0 0 
Total cost of Palm-house for fuel and labour.. ^423 0 0 
Can Mr. Weeks be serious in saying that we could, by 
adopting his principle of heating, save £1,095 per annum 
out of £423 ? 
I am far from wishing it to be understood that with 
the experience we have now acquired we should not be 
able, had we another such structure to erect, to correct 
several grave errors, and to economise our fuel; but 
how a business man like Mr. Weeks could have fallen 
into such enormous errors and miscalculations as we have 
here endeavoured to rectify, and how he can tax us with 
such a gross misapplication of public money, I must 
leave that gentleman to settle in his own mind. Were 
it fair to suppose that he has made mistakes of an 
opposite character in his calculations, aud in favour of 
his own case, the fact might turn out, after all, to be 
that economy was more practised and paid attention to 
in the Royal Gardens of Ivew than at the Horticultural 
establishment in the King’s Road, Chelsea. — W. J. 
Hooker , Director, Royal Gardens, Kew, Feb. 7. 
Speaking of our advertisement, Sir William Hooker says, 
it “ is calculated to convey very erroneous notions of the 
consumption of fuel in our Palm -house ; and, if true, showing 
us to lie guilty of a most extravagant and unjustifiable use 
of the public money.” 
In a reply to this passage we shall merely observe, that on 
seeing it, we immediately wrote to Sir William Hooker, 
saying, “ Whatever inaccuracies we may have been led 
into by incorrect information, we shall feel it our duty 
to set right in the next publication of the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, and we lose not a moment in expressing our 
sincere regret, that any statement of ours could be 
considered as conveying a charge against the management 
of the Royal Gardens, at Kew, or the administration of the 
funds devoted to its support by tho country;” and that had 
we done so, or “intended anything of the kind, we knew well 
the attempt could only recoii upon ourselves.” 
It now rests with us to show upon what grounds our state¬ 
ment of the consumption of fuel at the Palm-house at Kew 
was made. 
With the view of avoiding “ enormous errors and mis¬ 
calculations,” with which Sir William charges us, we pro¬ 
ceeded to the Palm-house, at Kew, in December last, and 
there received from the two men who attend the fires, the 
items of the consumption of fuel as given in our advertise¬ 
ments. 
Our Mr. Weeks, as a practical man, went into the whole 
question of the heating of the Palm-house with both of the 
men, and saw no reason for supposing the information they 
gave him to be incorrect. Upon that information, our 
calculation of the expense attending the consumption of fuel 
was based. Our advertisement containing that calculation 
having appeared first in the Gardeners' Chronicle so far back 
as the 29th of December, and otherwise having been pretty 
extensively circulated, without its accuracy having been 
called in question until the 10th instant, we bad, till then, 
believed that our statement was at least free from exaggera¬ 
tion ; more particularly, as the information given us in De¬ 
cember, would have warranted us in making out a larger 
expenditure of fuel than we put down. 
Sir William Hooker’s contradiction of our statement 
made it necessary that we should revisit the Palm-house, 
and therefore, our Mr. Weeks, accompanied by another 
praetical man, went there on the 12th instant, when they 
obtained tho following information from the men who 
attend to the boilers in the Palm-house. The men said, 
“ The house is heated by twelve boilers, six on each side ; 
we bring every day from the depot, eight truck or cart-loads 
of fuel; each cart-load contains nine sacks, all of which is 
consumed during tho twenty-four hours. The fuel consists 
of one-half good coke, the other half good coals.” This 
statement is corroborative of that made to Mr. Weeks in 
December last; and it requires but a very simple calculation 
to see, that according to it, there are seventy-two sacks of 
the mixed fuel consumed every twenty-four hours. We 
estimate the coke at about Is. 2d. per sack, and the coal at 
2s. Od. per sack, and at these prices, the mixed fuel -would 
cost about Is. lOd. per sack, which would make the daily 
consumption of fuel to heat the Palm house amount to 
about £0 12s. per day. We were further told on the spot, 
that this quantity of fuel was required for nearly six months 
each year ; but in our calculation, wo estimated the largest 
expenditure of fuel for four months only, and if we now 
assume that seventy-two sacks of mixed fuel, as stated to us 
by the men attending the boiler, is correct, but that that 
consumption is limited to four months instead of six, or 
nearly so, it would amount to. £792 0 0 
If we then reduce the consumption for 
the next four months, say by one-third, 
we find the expenditure amount to. 528 0 0 
And say half that again for the four summer 
months . 254 0 ® 
Making tho annual consumption of fuel for 
heating the Palm-house amount to.£1584 0 0 
We have now stated where wc obtained our information, and 
how we have made our calculations, and can only say, that 
if we are guilty of “ enormous errors and miscalculations," 
we hope Sir William Hooker will think as we did, that 
it was very natural we should have placed credence in 
the statement made to us on the spot by the very men 
who supply the furnaces daily with fuel; and who, being 
