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TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 27, 1860. 
requisite amount of moisture. That moisture communicated and 
the heat regularly dispersed, any or all of these modes may be 
used advantageously, more especially in houses of small extent; 
and these compare very favourably with the fashionable mode of 
heating by hot water. An error prevails in supposing that the 
heat from a close hot-water pipe is a bit more moist than from a 
stove or a flue. The advantages are, that the heat is diffused in 
the house more equally, and there is less danger from unwhole¬ 
some exhalations; but, heat for heat, it is equally dry, unless 
moistened by modes which are equally applicable to the ruder 
and simpler modes of heating. 
Heating in Chambers. —Even the now rather-fasliionable 
mode of accumulating heat in chambers, or in masses of rubble 
and brickwork, is after all founded upon the old kiln system ; and 
but for the expense of forming such chambers, there are few modes 
better where a regular bottom and top heat are required. The 
simplest mode, where Arc heat is used, is to surround the flue or 
pipes with stones, &c., and to have the means of damping these 
stones at pleasure. One of the best houses of this sort that ever 
I met with was a wide house for Cucumbers and Pines at Sliug- 
borough, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield, Staffordshire; but 
though it answered most admirably and would soon have paid 
its cost, the first expense would hardly suit the proprietors of 
small gardens. Unfortunately I have lost my plan of this 
house, but the annexed is a rough section not far from the mark 
kiln. The above may give an idea how to work ; but I have 
seen many attempts to follow the same plan fail, because the 
chamber was too small , and therefore the moist heat admitted 
was too scalding. 
Iron Stoves. —Such a plan, however, as the above is not 
likely' to be followed in any first attempt; but in these days of 
chambering and giving bottom heat it may not be amiss to allude 
to the most successful specimen I have met with. There are 
almost every week inquiries about iron and brick stoves for 
heating ; and for merely keeping out frost, as I have repeatedly 
showm, nothing answers better in small houses if a little care is 
exercised. I do not think they can be rendered available to any 
great extent for forcing purposes if they preserve the real character 
of stoves only. Even for keeping greenhouse plants and giving 
a little assistance to Yines, &c., one small iron stove, from 30 to 
36 inches in height and from 9 to 12 inches in diameter, can 
hardly manage more than a lean-to house 10 feet wide and 25 to 
30 feet long. If it were not for the first expense, the larger the 
stoves are the better will they act. I mean the outside covering, 
for unless in extreme cases, I would not use a stove that had. 
merely a thin casing of iron and the fire at the bottom. In such 
a case a part of the iron will soon get red hot, and neither plants 
nor men can thrive in their vicinity. The air is not only 
thoroughly deprived of its moisture, but all vegetable and animal 
matters suspended in it are also thoroughly burned; and the fumes 
given off will kill the plants near the stove, when those at the 
extremity of the house may pass uninjured. All 
stoves used in plant-houses should have a small fire¬ 
box standing quite free from the sides. A good 
stove for such a purpose would be one of the simpler 
forms of Dr. Arnott’s, as shown in Jig. 6, intended to 
4 
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The flue is supposed to return through 
the back wall, though not shown. ° 
from memory. 1 is ground level; 2, open chamber; 3, space 
for plants ; 4, pathway at back ; 5, furnace and flue, the flue 
going along the middle of chamber, and, if narrow, returning 
again and going up a chimney near the fireplace—or, if wide, 
going once through and out at the other end. For a house forty 
feet long, or so, either of these modes would do ; or the flue, after 
passing along the centre, might return in front at the top of the 
arch, so as to tell upon the atmosphere of the house directly. 
6 is a small boiler, which may be set solid, or something like a 
washhouse copper, with an open tube at the top three inches, or 
so, in diameter—that passes at once to the middle of the chamber, 
and there allows the steam to escape; 7, a pipe from a supply- 
cistern furnished with ball-cock, or at least always supplied with 
water on the same level as boiler ; 8, shelf for Cucumbers, &c.; 
9, small open pipes, furnished with plugs communicating between 
the chamber and the atmosphere of the house—these openings 
should be placed back and front every four feet in length ; 10 is 
a damper, which may be put across a couple of inches or so 
below the bottom of the boiler when it may be desirable to have 
dry heat alone, or there may be a superabundance of moisture. 
That, however, will very seldom be required. To secure that 
object in the house referred to, a small flue from a furnace at the 
other end of the house was run along the front on the top of the 
arch, but it was seldom used. Everything seemed to delight in 
the bottom heat, and the moist vapour that came so sweet with 
the heat through the pipe-openings. When under the manage¬ 
ment of Mr. McMurtrie I have never seen such crops of Cucum¬ 
bers, &c., before or since, unless in the case mentioned at Ivimpton 
Hoo last season ; and yet, with the exception of the flue instead 
a mere fireplace, and the open vapour pipe which thoroughly 
neutralise* the dry heat, there is just the old principle of the 
Fig. 6. 
represent one about 3 feet square and a trifle more than 4 [feet 
6 inches in height. The small fireplace is enclosed in an iron 
box, with thin firebricks up the side. An iron division comes 
down not quite in the centre, and leaving a space open top and 
bottom for the heated air to go round and round as well as out 
at the smoke pipe. 1 is the feeding-door made air-tight; 2, the 
ash-pit door, also air-tight,with a small valve in it to turn round 
to regulate the draught for the fire. A very small quantity of 
fuel will in such a stove give out a long, continuous heat; and 
being placed in the centre of a small house, the heated air will 
ascend and pass along next the glass to each end, whilst the cold 
air will keep coming along the bottom or floor, to be brought 
again and again in regular rotation against its sides—sides which, 
though hot, will never become dangerously warm if the valve at 
the ash-pit is attended to. When fairly lighted and the iron 
warm enough, a small hole at the valve, of the sixteenth of an 
inch in diameter, will give enough air to support a slow com¬ 
bustion. When the heat declines give a little more air. To keep 
the air moist, place a pan of zinc or other metal two or three 
inches deep on the top, supplied with water, or the top may 
be so cast. If desirable, the pan may be concealed by an open, 
conical, light cap. The vessel and the top are shown in dotted 
lines. The plate at top will be so much hotter than the sides, 
that the top may be formed into a small boiler, end pipes with 
hot water taken from it, or a tank of water be heated. The chief 
recommendation of such a system would be the great economy 
of fuel, from the heating medium being all in the house. Coke 
broken small is the best material for such stoves. To insure 
draught, with a small or no apertiu-e at the ash-pit, after com¬ 
bustion has fairly commenced, the smoke pipe should not proceed 
many feet in a horizontal position, but should soon rise upright 
or in a slanting position against the back wall of the house 
before going outside ; and the longer the pipe the less heat will 
be lost. Previous to cleaning out the ash-pit a slight damping 
of the ashes will be necessary. 
