126 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 31, 1859. 
dark brownish russet specks. Flesh pale green, reddish to¬ 
wards the stone,melting, juicy, and richly flavoured. Stone 
oval and rough. Flowers small. Glands kidney-shaped. 
Ripens in the end of August and beginning of September. 
This is one of the very best nectarines. The tree is 
an excellent bearer, and forces well. 
Emmerton’s White. See White. 
{To be continued.) 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
HEATING BY HOT WATER IN PIPES. 
“ 1. What should be the diameter of the underground pipes 
connecting the boiler with three-inch or four-inch radiating pipes 
—two-inch or one-inch ? (Length, underground, twenty feet.) 
“ 2. Supposing the radiating pipes, in houses to the left of the 
boiler, to be at a greater elevation (two feet) above the boiler 
than the radiating pipes in houses to the right of the boiler, will 
not the former pipes rob the latter of their share of heat ? 
“ 3. Can heat be subdued in any house by partially closing the 
valves between that house and the boiler ? It is said that, by 
diminishing the aperture, the water will only flow more quickly. 
Would the object be attained by partially opening all three taps, 
if the house is found to be too hot when two taps are open and 
one shut ? 
“4. I am obliged to have the flow-pipe in one house, im¬ 
mediately over (almost touching) its return-pipe. Being short of 
height, will that affect the circulation materially, and should a 
flat piece of wood be interposed ? 
“ 5. What is the best boiler for binning coke ? Coal makes so 
much smoko and dirt.”— A Countky Scbscbiber. 
[1. We should prefer two inches to one inch for a conducting 
length of twenty feet, though an inch would answer: unless for 
the little extra expense, we would just as soon have a three or 
a four-inch pipe, similar to what is to bo used in the houses. 
There need be little loss of heat in consequence. If that space 
could be covered with glass, there need be no waste of heat. Sup¬ 
posing that the twenty-feet space could not be so covered, but that 
the pipes went beneath a pathway or other ground, then a wall of 
brick, and, better still, of wood, might so enclose the pipes as to 
have them in a hollow drain. On the top of that there might be 
several air-gratings, to be opened and shut at pleasure, and also 
to permit of a pail of water being poured into the drain when 
necessary. Supposing that the end of the drain opened into the 
house, the heat radiated from the pipes would find its way there. 
If the air-gratings were open, especially at the end next the boiler, 
then the heated fresh air would be driven through the drain into 
the house; and to make that air moist as well as fretli and heated, 
all that would be necessary would be to keep the drain moist 
through which the pipes passed. Little heat would thus be lost 
on the tiventy-feet distance, and the extra expense of larger pipes 
would be neutralised by the less expense involved in fixing, &c. 
2. The pipes placed higher by two feet in one liouso than in 
the other will not necessarily rob the latter of their share of heat, 
provided, as in your ease, both pipes start from the same height in 
the boiler. If, at times, there should be a tendency to this, then 
turning the tap partly, or altogether, for a very short time on the 
upper pipes, will give a full flow to the lower ones, and then they 
will look after themselves. We have had the management of 
houses where the flow-pipes started at unequal heights from the 
boiler; and here, without this management of the taps, the higher 
course of pipes would always be the hotter, because the opening 
in the boiler being fully nine inches higher than the lower one, 
the water at the top was always actually the hottest. This will 
not take place in your boiler when you have a T piece on the 
top of the boiler, as the main flow for both houses. You may, 
therefore, manage very well with two houses with the tapis you 
mention, so as to shut off one at will, either altogether or 
partially so. Under your proposed arrangement, you will require 
to have a supply-cistern higher than the highest pioint of your 
pipes, and a half-inch air-pipe in the highest end of the pipes in 
each house. That open air-pipe to stand a couple of feet or so 
higher than the supply-cistern. If you had a supply-cistern on 
the end of the pipes in the house where they are highest, then an 
air-pipe in the other house would do. Or you might have a small 
supply cistern in each house; but then both cisterns must be on 
a level, whatever be the level of the pipes. If you contemplated 
heating more than two houses from the same boiler, then by far 
the simplest plan would be to take one flow-pipe to a general 
cistern placed higher than the highest point would be; and, 
besides this one flow-pipe hole, to have as many holes in the 
bottom of the cistern as you wished for a flow-pipe to each 
separate house. These holes could be regulated by expensive 
brass plugs, and just as well by good cheap deal plugs. It 
matters not how different may be the level of the pipes in the 
different houses, provided all of them are above the level of the 
boiler. The whole returns could meet in one at the bottom of 
the boiler. Regulate your flow-pipes, and you need not trouble 
yourself about the returns, provided they are all open. When 
there are many departments, some will heat at times more easily 
than others under this plan ; but there is no difficulty, if you just 
coax them to do their duty by regulating the plugs. The first we 
so managed, more than twenty years ago, was put up by the late 
Mr. W r eeks, father of the head of the present celebrated firm ; and 
by means of w'ooden plugs, with notches cut in the sides of some 
of them, we could get the pipes hot, or just moderately so, as wo 
liked. Considering that Mr. Weeks was such a rare mechanical 
genius, we have often wondered he never hit on one simple thing. 
We had pipes in different places at very different levels, and Mr. 
Weeks had holes bored in the highest points, and a wooden pin 
put in there to let out any air that might accumulate; but then 
the pin had to be removed frequently, and sometimes the air 
would rush out hot enough to scald one. The little open air-pipe 
acts constantly ; even when we sleep there can be no accumulation 
of air to prevent the water circulating. How simple it all looks 
now, when known and acted upon. Most of us can recollect 
the nice little pumps for extracting the air in some of the first 
attempts at heating by hot water. A piece of open gas-pipe— 
with one end higher than the Supply-cistern, and the other 
soldered in a hole at the highest point of the water-pipe—beats, 
for utility and simplicity for the desired purposes, all the air- 
pumps in Christendom. When a little town of houses are to bo 
heated, there is no plan equal to that adopted by Mr. Weeks, of 
taking a main flow and return for the whole length, placed lower 
than the pipes in the different houses to be heated, and each 
house connected thus with valves with the main flow und return. 
The pipes in these houses may vary in size, form, and height 
where practicable, provided they are all higher than the main flow 
and return. Whenever the valve, or tap, is moved, the heated 
water rushes up. 
3. The third inquiry has been answered above. It is true, 
other things being equal, that the smaller the aperture the quicker 
the flow; but it is also true, that the smaller the opening the 
smaller the quantity that passes; so that, in regulating taps, we 
found, in general, that diminishing the aperture threw more 
strength into the aperture that was left open. But, as already 
stated, when even this does not answer, one valve may be shut 
altogether for a short time; and when once it gets the current it 
will not be easily robbed. A very little attention when lighting 
the fires will manage all that; in fact, with two houses merely, 
it will seldom want any regulating at all. We do not understand 
exactly what you mean by shutting the valves; but we must 
warn you against shutting both flow-valves when you have a 
brisk fire on, if you do not wish the valves to be injured, or the 
boiler to send itself and the stoke-hole into the air. Were you 
near us we could take you to a small boiler that heats two houses 
—one facing the south and the other facing the north, behind it. 
The pipes in the latter are more than two feet below the pipes in 
the former. Eacltohouse is furnished with valves to heat one or 
both at will. The valve on the north Bide of the house was shut. 
The heat was beyond all bounds on the south side, and, to lessen 
it, the stoker turned the valve to prevent circulation, and never 
moved the valve in the north house. The consequence was, that 
both brass valves were so injured that neither now acts as it should 
do; and had they not given way, the boiler must have burst, 
and thrown down all the brickwork. Hot water is the simplest 
mode of heating imaginable; but the simplicities must be at¬ 
tended to. What can look more simple than keeping the pipes 
and supply-cistern stored with water ? and yet most gardeners 
find that these simplicities want looking after; or the stoker may 
have plenty of fire, and have no circulation of hot water. 
4. You have no need to trouble yourself about your flow and 
return pipes being so near each other. The wood between them, 
unless it would tend to hold them securely, we should care 
nothing at all about. In fact, we should prefer the pipes being 
sido by side, instead of being over each other at all. Suppose 
that your flow-pipe rose to the farther end an inch and a half— 
