352 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, MaiiCtt 12, 1361. 
worlc, and the result is that I am fairly puzzled with the variety 
of opinions given there and elsewhere. Mr. Robson says nothing 
is equal to a large boiler, “big enough for a man to get into,” 
and of the saddle shape. Again, the Editors in reply to a query 
say they prefer the retort or tubular to the saddle boiler, and 
cast to wrouglit-iron; and that “ the less water the boiler 
holds, and the larger the surface it presents to the fire, the more 
powerful will be its action.” I can imagine it will be more 
speedy in sending a stream of hot water through the pipes, but 
will its action be as continuous as in a larger boiler ? Some say 
that cast-iron boilers are highly dangerous and apt to fly; 
others that the rivets of wrought-iron boilers are apt to give 
way. One man says, “ Get a big boiler by all means : you will 
have a large body of hot water, which will retain its heat and 
make all safe even if the fire get very low.” 
fAgain, with respect to pipes. I am told that flat pipes with 
troughs to hold water are indispensable to the health of my 
Vines. My next adviser tells me, “Whatever you do, have 
nothing to do with flat pipes and says I shall be & flat myself 
if I use them, and will be sure to pipe my eye, as they are 
always going wrong, leaking at the joints, breaking at the 
corners, and causing endless botheration and expense. My next 
friend is equally condemnatory of round pipes, and highly 
approves of flat ones, saying that the breakage and leakage are 
caused by the flimsiness of the pipes and the slovenly manner in 
which they are fitted. 
Taking a common-sense view of the matter, it seems to me 
that if your fire can be maintained from, say, 8 p.m. till 7 a.m., 
and your apparatus i3 properly adjusted, it is of small conse¬ 
quence whether your boiler is large or small; but I shall feel 
much obliged if you can give the matter a full discussion in your 
pages. I am sure it will be interesting, and will probably evoke 
from your correspondents a multitude of hints which may be of 
value.—J. M. 
[We have little faith in the usefulness of such a discussion 
about boilers. Your own letter, and what we know and hear 
from gardeners every day just at present, prove “ that what is 
best administered is best.” Of course, a large boiler retains the 
heat longer after the fire has gone out; but it is all the longer 
heating, and therefore unsuitable when sudden heats are wanted 
to meet sudden colds. A fire may always be so managed as to 
keep up a continuous heat when necessary. We are thoroughly 
convinced that a good gardener, by his own management, would 
undertake to make any of the popular boilers act satisfactorily 
both as respects efficiency and economy. More depends on the 
setting and the management than on the mere form of the 
boiler. Our experience leads us to favour those of the simplest 
construction. See what Mr. Eish has lately said on boilers, and 
what he says to-day about Mr. Rivers’ small boiler. We have in 
use flat pipes that have been employed for thirty years without a 
chip or flaw; nevertheless, we prefer round pipes, and evapo¬ 
rating-pans can be supplied to them as easily as to flat ones. 
On the score of economy small boilers are cheaper tin large 
ones, and a small one ought to do for your vinery.] 
GLEANINGS FROM SAWBRIDGEWORTH. 
(Continued from page 335.) 
Almost the whole of these houses are glazed in a uniform 
manner with glass 20 inches by 12 inches, and I did not notice 
a single breakage by the frost. The fixed rafter sash-bars, 
according to their length and as they were braced or not, were 
from 2-[ by H to 3| and 4£ by 1-| inches. One house, glazed 
on the plan of Mr. Monro, inventor of the cannon boiler, 
looked very neat—has no patty on the top, but each large square 
is fixed by four screws to the sash-bar, a piece of Indianrubber 
or leather being placed between the glass and the screw. In 
exposed places in high winds it was thought that the glass might 
chip against the screws. These rafter sash-bars are hollowed in 
the middle to take off drip and water, the glass 
being laid upon and fastened on the flat on each 
side of the hollowed groove. 
Though most of these wood-and-glass houses 
are properly orchard-houses, having no heat—ex¬ 
cept in very severe nights a few pans of lighted 
charcoal when the trees are in full bloom—a 
number of them are heated to any required tem¬ 
perature, either simply by brick Arnott’s stoves 
alone, or by these stoves in combination with a small boiler 
placed on the ]-op of a brick stove, communicating with tanks or 
pipes, or both. The use and. the mode of making such stoves 
were given in a late Number.'. The first I saw at the nursery 
was a very nice one in the entrance-hall of the house, painted 
black—partly, I suppose, for appearance, and partly for radiating 
heat more freely; and the heat given was of a mild satisfactory 
character, more pleasing than from any iron stove. The second 
I noticed was of the larger size, some 2 feet 10 inches in the 
square, and 3 feet 10 inches in height, placed in the middle 
of a lean-to house a couple of feet or so from the back wall, 
and a small brick chimney for taking the smoke out, and fur¬ 
nished with a pan of water on the top, which seemed nice and 
warm. That house was about GO feet long and 12 feet wide. 
There was a wide platform in front filled with dwarf Roses in 
pots ; and the floor behind, except a small space for passage, 
was filled with standards and taller Roses, all breaking nicely or 
in leaf, to afford material for cuttings, budding, &c., and I never 
saw a lot more healthy. The atmosphere, from the moisture in 
the pots and the evaporating-basin combined, was of a moist, 
genial character ; and from much use in noticing the temperature 
of houses on entering them, I should say that the temperature 
at the two ends of the house was from 57° to 58°, and at the 
centre opposite the stove close on 60°. For economy in fuel 
no plan can beat this. These stoves, however, are frequently 
placed, so that, though all in the house, the fire can be made 
from the outside like a regular furnace and flue; and in many 
cases, instead of the plate of iron on the top, covered or not 
covered with tiles, a small boiler is fixed there, and pipes, taken 
from it in the usual way. These boilers are 14 inches, 16 inches, 
or 18 inches square, to suit the different sized stoves, and are 
made by Mr. Hughes, of Bishop Stortford, 
at from 30s. to 35s. each, and are just small 
flat saddle-backs. An old one was lying at 
the end of a house, which, without measur¬ 
ing, I should judge to have been 14 inches 
square (see figure), depth at ends from 
3 inches to 4 inches, and in the centre of the curve 2 inches, 
holding altogether about two gallons of water. The flow-pipe 
was placed on the top, and the return in the end. This is a 
very different thing from the proposal of a correspondent the 
other week to heat a small tank in a greenhouse from a some 
fifty-gallon boiler. Ear better have one of these stoves and 
boilers at once, or such a one as that recommended by Mr. 
Allen. 
Two-inch pipes were at first used for connect ing the boiler with 
the other heating medium, whether larger pipes or tanks ; but 
three-inch and even four-inch pipes a efound to be better fixed 
on the boiler at once. When the ho use is large, though the 
stove and boiler are inside, it will be best I presume to have the 
feeding-door and ash-pit outside, to permit of the fire-box being 
sunk sufficiently to give a good rise to the flow-pipe. Some 
vineries were thus heated, the Vines being grown not only for 
the fruit, but for securing plenty of wood that can be depended 
on a 3 true to the kinds for propagating. One of these had the 
pipes beneath a wide platform in front, and above the pipes a 
shallow tank, with openings to furnish a nice moist heat for 
myriads of Vine cuttings. A large span house, 70 feet long, 20 feet 
wide, 4 feet high at the sides, and 10 feet at the ridge-board, was 
divided into three beds, one in the middle, and one on each side, 
the pathways being about 15 inches deep, and the same in width, 
with pipes from stove-boiler beneath the beds, filled with grafted 
Peaches, &c., to be succeeded in May by young Vines in pots. 
These Vines reached last season to the apex of the roof; and 
though no air was given except by the hinged boards at the sides, 
and the small opening over each door at the ends, I was assured 
that not a leaf was scalded or burned. 
Another house in "the same style is honoured with Figs in summer. 
But I must not enlarge on what these small boilers on the top of a 
small stove are capable of doing by mentioning the particulars of 
more houses, but will finish with noticing one which would be a 
great comfort to many of us gardeners as well as amateurs. This 
neat span-roofed house is 80 feet long, 10 feet wide, 8 feet in 
height to the ridge-board, and 4,j feet high at the sides. It is 
divided by a pathway down the middle which thus forms a bed or 
pit on each side. The height of the wall of these pits, surmounted 
by a wooden-wall plate, may be about feet above the level of 
the pathway. These two pits are heated by one of these small 
boilers, with plunging material over the pipes. These pits were 
filled from end to end with small, fresh-grafted plants of Roses, 
Peaches, Oranges, &c. Just enough of heat was given to start 
