202 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[June 27. 
the after-labour, &c., being quite as much in the hot 
water case as the other, and much more so if any of 
those whimsical contrivances, miscalled boilers, be at¬ 
tached, that the after-attendance of flue-fires need not 
create any alarm. 
In respect to the dry heat arising from a flue, I have 
never felt any inconvenience from it, because that can 
be rendered as moist as that from the pipes, perhaps 
more so; a few pans of water set on the covers, or if the 
latter be scooped out in the making so as to hold water, 
which I have seen some times done, every purpose of a 
moist heat is served. And in regard to a flue retaining its 
heat during the night, 1 have no hesitation in saying, a 
well-contrived one will do so quite as well as the best hot- 
water apparatus. I well remember in my younger days 
keeping a grape-house in the early spring months up to 
70° by a flue, yet never attended it after nine at night, 
or before six in the morning, and very rarely was the 
thermometer more than one degree below or above the 
fixed point; of course, practice only teaches the way of 
such things—merely looking on and giving directions 
will not do—nothing else than using the shovel and coal- 
rake can convey a good idea of the care or trouble of 
these matters. But gardening now-a-days does not re¬ 
quire such exact working of a thermometer, in fact that 
instrument may be safely dispensed with, except for 
experimental purposes. Now, although I have had some 
tolerably good working hot-watcr affairs under my hand, 
I could never ensure such a uniform continuance of 
heat; yet it is fair to say, that no inconvenience arises 
from a slight fall towards morning, provided it be not 
too much. 
From the above it will be seen, that for all structures 
where heat is required no further than to exclude frost, a 
flue is all that is wanted, provided the interior arrange¬ 
ments offer no impediments in the way; and likewise for 
a great many forcing purposes a flue will be found as 
useful as the other ; but where bottom-lieat is required 
for Hamiltonian pine pits, and such like, I question 
whether a flue would be found to answer; and where a 
course of pits are in regular working the whole year, 
pipes might then be most advisable; but for any solitary 
house or pit, I think a flue would serve all purposes 
wanted; even in vineries or houses expressly used for 
forcing grapes, I have found flues act quite as well as 
pipes, more especially if assisted by a large body of fer¬ 
menting material inside. 
In conclusion, let me warn the amateur, whichever 
method he adopt, to take care to have the furnace large 
enough; more than half the failures of the boiler con¬ 
trivances are by making so small a place for firing, just 
as if combustion would go on in such a Lilliputian scale ; 
also let the ash box be capacious; there is no need for a 
door then; they are seldom used, and are only in the 
way of cleaning out, &c., and any tendency the fire may 
have of burning too quickly away is easily remedied by 
thrusting the hot fire near the throat of the flue at 
making-up time, and placing the coal or coke behind it, 
i. e., nearer the door; a few ashes between, or over all, 
likewise checks combustion, but these matters will soon 
show themselves to the stoker, whose trade, like all 
handicrafts, can only be learned by himself using the 
tools. S. N. V. 
EXTRACTS EROM CORRESPONDENCE. 
Tobacco Fumigation.— Permit me to submit the following 
plan for fumigating plants, which may be found useful from 
its economy:—Take the nozzle of the waterpot,put an ounce 
of tobacco and two or three ignited fuzees, or red hot cinders, 
into it. Insert the tube of the ldtchen bellows, filling up the 
space between the tube of the nozzles of waterpot and bellows 
with rag, and blow gently; the smoke comes out freely. One 
objection is, you get a good quantity of smoke over your own : 
clothes. I have tried this and found it answer.—E. P. 
Fishes Deinking Salt Water. —It may not be an absurd 
question to inquire, if fishes drink sea or salt water ? Some 
may say, what else can they drink but the water in which 
they swim ? Plausible as this sounds, the experiments of 
Sir E. Home, and the trite expression, that “sea fishes are | 
fresh,” tend to show they do not drink salt water, or if they j 
do it is changed by a process which cannot he explained. I ] 
think, however, that Mudie, copying from the great anatomist j 
referred to, mentions that the salt water is converted into 
fresh as it passes through the gills of fishes before it is 
drunk. If such he the case it is really curious, for I believe 
there are no means yet discovered to convert salt water into 
fresh except by evaporation. But it is very natural to allege, 
that sea water enters into the stomachs of fishes when they 
are in the act of swallowing their food, if so, it must be in 
very small quantities, for their inside is as fresh as their 
outer bodies or skins That these are not salt is beyond 
doubt, but the reason why they are so is very wonderful. It 
is, however, surmised, that fishes do not drink nor even 
swallow water, but that it all passes out at their gills without 
entering their stomachs. Be that as it may, I content my¬ 
self with observing, that perhaps all sorts of sea animals \ 
have the power of repelling salt, if I may so express myself, 
in a similar way as the feathers and felt of water-fowls do i 
■water. Perhaps the slimy matter on fishes serves the same 
purpose ; and it may be owing to the difference in this sin- | 
gular property that fresh water fishes die instantly in salt ! 
water, and the same happen to sea fishes in fresh water. 
Professor Forbes, in Ins very interesting account of star- | 
fishes, states, they die instantly when dropped into cold fresh j 
water ; but, perchance, the same result would be obtained if 
tlifty were put into fresh water of the same temperature as 
the water at the bottom of the sea. 
The fact of some kind of sea fishes living part of the ! 
season in rivers, <fcc., is not fatal to what I have said ; for 
these take good care not to enter fresh water suddenly, but i 
linger a while at the mouths of rivers in brackish water, in - 
order to prepare their bodies for the fresh climate ; and the 
like happens on their return to the sea. Although hardly 
connected with this subject, I may remark, that all sorts of 
sea weeds are salt; and, perhaps, so would be a live trout or 
pike if dipped into the sea, but not a living herring. But I 
question how it would he with the herring if dead a while. 
It has occurred to me, if fishes have the power to convert 
salt water into fresh as hinted at, it may he worth inquiring, 
if seals and all other air-breathing animals drink saltwater? 
Those who have kept tame seals can easily tell what sort of 
water they drank. The best account I know of one of those 
sea-doys is that which was kept by a party in a fort on the 
small isle of Garvie, in the Firth of Forth. It was not only 
tame, hut would follow its master’s boat to Leith Harbour, 
and back a again, a distance, perhaps, of six or seven miles. 
This most singular trait in the character of the seal has 
nothing to do, of course, with what we are told concerning 
seals following boats, attracted by music in them. That 
such is the case there seems little doubt; at least, I have 
seen seals, near the place referred to, pop their heads above 
water, apparently to listen to the blithesome sound from the 
sharpening of my scythe on a fine summer morning.— 
J. Wighton. 
Parrot Losing its Feathers. —Although I am unable 
from experience to recommend any outward application, yet 
from having long and successfully managed one of the more 
tender paroquets, I would suggest that the bird in question 
is suffering from a heated and over stimulated state of the 
blood, which of course acts upon the skin, as oitr hair is apt 
to fall off after fever or inflammatory attacks. In a state of 
nature the parrot tribe live on fruits, seeds, and grain; it 
must, therefore, be a great mistake to give them meat, or 
chicken hones to pick, as I have seen them permitted to do. 
I have had my Bing paroquet five years from the time of 
his first moulting ; and his diet lias been constantly hemp- 
seeds in fresh bread and milk—his tin being scalded every 
morning. If his bread be crusty, or not sufficiently soaked, 
he evinces his displeasure by throwing it beyond the bars of 
the cage, the floor of which is daily strewed with coarse sand. 
This is most important, as, like the common fowl, parrots 
require the assistance of some hard matter in the digestion 
