153 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 14. 1859. 
were powerful, your cold-water supply-cistern might run over with 
boiling water, and that might be anything but pleasant. To 
arrest that unpleasantness, and also prevent the possibility of the 
boiler bursting, you must have a pipe fastened to the top of the 
boiler, for the escape of steam and greatly heated vapour. That 
pipe should be quite as long as the height of the supply-cistern, 
and the open end should be up the chimney, but bent, so as to 
prevent soot, &c., getting into it, or, better still, if it can be 
managed, in the open air. These pipes generally throw their 
heated moisture up the chimney, and no injurious effects result. 
But in large ranges, and where strong fires are maintained from 
morning to night, we have known instances where the moisture 
thus escaping, if it did not considerably damage the jack machinery, 
so damped the walls that the soot collected faster than usual, and 
the damp even soaked through the walls and damaged the paint 
and colouring; while the inside plastering was always liable to 
fall and impede the draught. As most kitchens are as low as 
any other part of the building, the best plan is to take such a 
pipe through the wall into the open air ; and all that will ever be 
known of it, even by the curiously inquisitive, will be seeing a 
little jet of steam, especially in coldish weather, and when the 
boiler is extra hot. With such an open steam, or vapour, pipe, 
the boiler will be safe, whether the water circulates in the green¬ 
house, or is completely shut off by any of the modes adverted to, 
and without any appliances of iron blocks, &c. 
The idea of the block, however, is a good one, as already ad¬ 
mitted. It would be well to have it to slip up and down in a 
groove; but that is a minor consideration. It should have a 
good open ring-handle, so that the poker or tongs may easily go 
through it. We would use it for a double purpose. Most of 
these kitchen boilers are set so hollow that the fire has access 
underneath them, and partly round the sides, and often one end, 
if not more. Well, when you want your boiler comparat'vely 
cool, slipping your iron block close down to the bars will stop 
this draught. We should have mentioned that with plugs or taps, 
however hot the boiler, you may regulate the heat in your pipes 
in the house to a nicety by regulating the taps. But to the 
blocks,—the greater the space between them and the boiler, the 
more effectual would they be in keeping the boiler cool. But 
now for the second use. We have an intense frost in January, 
the cooking is all over by seven or eight o’clock, and we want the 
pipes to keep hot without wasting fuel. Well, we collect the fire 
close to the boiler; the block is now placed in front, inside the 
bars, and close to the fuel; and if we can clap another block, or 
piece of iron, over the top of the fire, we can get nearly as much 
heat about this kitchen boiler, with a limited amount of fuel, as 
if we had constructed a small furnace for it on purpose. All 
these niceties will well repay those who can take an interest in such 
things ; and, thus managed, many a pretty conservatory might be 
an adjunct to the sitting-parlour. When such matters, as in 
large establishments, must be left to servants, and these servants 
having severally their own distinctive departments, then it would 
not be advisable to heat gardening structures from fires inside the 
mansion. 
We were closing without noticing your question as to glazing. 
We prefer wood, but chiefly on the score of painting. If you do 
not mind that, then the expanding and contracting facts may be 
got over easily enough, if you insist on easy fitting of the glass, 
with or without India rubber. See that the squares move easily 
in their places, having a play of a sixteenth to a twentieth of an 
inch, and they will be safe from breakage from expansion or 
contraction.] 
DISTANCE OF PLANTS FROM GLASS—RED SPIDER. 
“ ‘ H. B.’ would feel grateful for being informed what is con¬ 
sidered to be the proper distance from the glass to train Melons 
ar.d Cucumbers upon trellises (in houses), to prevent burning or 
scorching the foliage, where shading is not in use. ‘II. B.’s’ 
house is glazed with Hartley’s rough plate. ‘ H. B.’ has heard 
that at Trentliam they train all kinds of trees as close to the glass 
as possible. Perhaps yon will also oblige him with the proper 
distance for training the Vine and Peach. 
“ ‘ H. B.’s ’ Melons last year suffered very severely from the 
effects of red spider. He found that the remedies he adopted 
failed to eradicate them, and at the same time the foliage of the 
plants was much injured. ‘II. B.’s’ remedy was sulphur upon 
the pipes and in water. He wishes for a recipe not likely to 
injure the plants, and at the same time one that is effectual in 
checking or eradicating this miserable pest.” 
[When we were at Trentham it did not strike us that the trees 
were trained more than ordinarily dose to the glass. In the 
narrow upright houses against the walls, and supplied witli a 
hipped glass roof, the walls were covered from top to bottom; 
and the dwarf trellis in front, just so high as to permit the rays 
of light passing over it to strike to the bottom of the wall at the 
back—that trellis was, as far as we recollect, nearer the glass than 
usual. In such a position, however, there could be little or no 
danger of scorching. Most of those houses had little or no arti¬ 
ficial heat given to them when we saw them. From the upright 
position of the glass, the rays of the sun would strike such a 
house most perpendicularly in the winter and early spring months, 
when most of the trees in the trellises would be comparatively in 
a state of rest. In summer and autumn, the rays would strike 
such glass more obliquely than they would do sloping roofs at 
the common angle of 45° or more. The closer to the glass, there¬ 
fore, the more light would such plants have, more room be given 
in the interior, and little or no risk incurred from burning from 
the force of the sun’s rays, with the least care or attention to air- 
giving. Were we, therefore, to act on scientific principles, instead 
of mere medium practical utility and ease, we would have move¬ 
able trellises for our trees, and moveable stages for our plants, 
and thus encourage the authors of the models exhibited at Chis¬ 
wick last season ; and then we could bring plants nearer the light 
in dull weather, and remove ihem further from it in bright 
sunny weather. We could also elevate them in mild weather, 
and depress them when extra cold. The only objection to all such 
modes is, the great variety of matters in most places, to which a 
gardener’s attention must be directed; and the great likelihood, 
therefore, of such minutise at times being neglected, until forget¬ 
fulness should be followed by disaster. By using Hartley’s 
rough plate, and with good attention to air-giving, the leaves 
may be nearer the glass than when common, or even the best 
clear sheet glass, is used. The outcry against sheet glass, for 
scorching and burning, is less owing to the glass than to late and 
careless air-giving. By the old small square system, there were 
thousands of openings for air, and as many black blotches at the 
laps, to dull the force of the sun’s rays. If a man, even in a 
bright morning, imitated the snail’s race in giving air, but little 
harm would be done. Be as careless in the case of a house close- 
glazed with large squares of clear glass, and the manager will be 
lucky if the burning and scorching effects of the glass are received 
as a sufficient excuse for the deplorable results. 
Hartley’s rough will so far be a safeguard ; but even with that 
we have seen plants injured by delaying giving air too long. 
Where the temperature will admit of it, it is safest to leave a 
little air at the top all night through the summer. It will have 
been seen that the true theory of distance from the glass will 
greatly depend on the slope of the roof and the directness of 
the sun’s rays. For instance : here is a flat glass-roofed pit, at an 
angle of 80°, started for Cucumbers in December. Well, in that 
case, heat being secured, the leaves should just be as near the 
glass as not to touch it. In such a pit in July we should like 
the leaves to be fifteen inches from the glass at least. In the 
summer months, the distance from the glass, if ranging from 
eighteen inches to two feet, is of less moment if there is no in¬ 
terposing medium between the glass and the plants. For fixed 
trellises for all the purposes you name, we would have them 
ranging from fifteen to eighteen inches from the glass. The 
lesser for Beaches, and the larger space fot Vines and Cucumbers. 
Even then, supposing the Vines all tied to the under side of the 
trellis, the mass of leaves will be at no great distance from the 
glass, just sufficient to allow the air to pass and circulate over 
them freely, as well as beneath them. Under Hartley’s glass, if 
any object, such as mere headway or internal space, were to be 
secured, an inch or two less would do. Under large squares of 
common sheet glass, an inch or two more would be advisable. Of 
course, if inferior spotted glass is used, these spots must be 
covered with paint or size, or no distance from the glass, or care 
in air-giving will prevent burning in places. For two years wo 
had the leaves of a tree close to the ground on the back wall of a 
lean-to house scorched for a space of about fifteen inches 
square; and after some trouble found at length a starry round 
spot in the glass, which concentrated the sun’s rays. The spot 
was daubed outside and inside with strong size, and there was no 
more bui ning. 
Red Spider.—T here is nothing to be depended on farther 
than has been adverted to largely in these columns. The strong 
wash, formed by boiling a pound of sulphur and a pound ot 
| lime in five or six quarts of water for twenty minutes, pouring off 
