THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, November 18, 1850. 113 
has cost but a trifle in building, and I am more than 
surprised at the small quantity of fuel it takes to get a 
good heat in the bed and in the house. What he 
chiefly inquires is, what success he is likely to have 
with Cucumbers, which he wishes to commence early, 
Strawberries ditto, and what he could grow in the three- 
feet-deep chamber underneath the pipes? Now, here is 
matter enough for an article; but I must compress it in 
a few lines. It is always unpleasant to damp enthu¬ 
siasm, and yet I fear your house will not always do so 
well as it seems to do at present. Have you contrived 
any means by which you can run a stiff whalebone 
brush, made something like a bottle-brush, through, these 
iron pipes often? If not, they will soon get crusted 
with soot, and then you will not have so much heat, or 
you will have hack draughts and explosions, which will 
next to kill your Kidney Beans and Cucumbers, from 
having your furnace doors in the house instead of out¬ 
side ; or the soot will burn in the pipes, and make them 
so hot as to kiln-dry the atmosphere, and rob it of its 
oxygen. The Cucumber delights in a moist atmosphere; 
hut you seem to have no means of giving moist heat, 
either by evaporating-pans on the pipes or otherwise. The 
pipes are placed so high, and the bottom of the chamber is 
so far from them, that you could grow Mushrooms there, 
or force Sea-kale and Rhubarb in great plenty, or even 
Asparagus, if you did not mind its being white. Had 
you shutters to go inside your chamber, dividing it into 
two as respects its depth, what you grew beneath would 
be kept cooler; and, provided you kept the upper side of 
these shutters covered with moss loosely, and in as damp 
a state as possible, you might also obtain damp heat for 
your Cucumbers. You seem to have no openings from 
the chamber to the front house, and the want of that 
would have a tendency to make a stagnant atmosphere 
there. Make an opening opposite each light at least; 
do the same at the top of the chamber in the curb wall, 
leaving a slide or plug to regulate the heat at your 
pleasure. At the bottom of your chamber, or as low down 
as your shutters—and these, if you have them, sloping 
to the curb wall—have another opening made in the 
small wooden doors of your place, and left open always. 
Then, as the heat escapes at the top openings, cold, dried 
air will be drawn in at the lower openings, be saturated 
with moisture, and heated by the pipes, and pass out 
again. Evaporating-troughs on the pipes will also be 
a great advantage. By such modes, and great care 
never to have the pipes too hot, you may succeed; but 
your labour and care would have been greatly lessened 
had you used your pipes in connection with a small 
boiler, with the power of moistening the atmosphere at 
pleasure. If you succeed at all with Cucumbers there 
will be no difficulty with Beans. With Strawberries it 
is different. With a heat suitable for Cucumbers you 
can only swell them after being set. If you try them 
early, and place them in a Cucumber temperature at 
once, the flowers, if they come, will most likely all go 
blind. We shall be glad to know how you succeed, and 
how far you adopt any of these suggestions. Your 
great difficulties will he keeping your pipes clean, and 
not overheating them, and securing a moist atmosphere, 
with a due degree of circulation in it. R. Fish. 
MESSRS. J. WEEKS AND CO.’S ONE-BOILER 
SYSTEM. 
One of our engineers has just returned from a gentle¬ 
man’s place, where we have been fixing an apparatus that 
really does wonders. It is at Lord Bridport’s, Cricket St. 
Thomas, Chard. His Lordship has got some very extensive 
ranges of hothouses of various descriptions, only the greater 
part of which was heated by hot water from eighteen various 
boilers! All these eighteen boilers were considered good 
and efficient, and his Lordship, as well as his gardener, Mr. 
Davis, were satisfied; submitting, as a matter of course, to 
the having to light eighteen fires, and to the nuisance of so 
many chimneys. But what a change has now taken place ! 
How seriously now would both Mr. Davis, and his Lordship 
also, cry out against such a nuisance as so many fires and 
so many smoky chimneys! The whole of those houses, and 
more than all of what was formerly done, is now done 
effectually by one of our upright tubular boilers. 
We will now explain to you the way which Lord 
Bridport adopted before he ordered this one boiler of us. 
His Lordship paid frequent visits to our nursery, where 
houses to the extent of 1000 feet are heated by one boiler. 
He also went three or four times to Messrs. Edward 
Henderson’s nursery, where houses to the extent of 960 feet 
are heated by one boiler. His Lordship at last convinced 
himself that the principle was good, and he made up his 
mind to adopt our one-boiler system to about one half of 
his hothouses. It was done, and the result was so satis¬ 
factory, that his Lordship expressed his astonishment at the 
wonderful power of the boiler. 
Our engineer was then still at his Lordship’s place, 
Cricket St. Thomas, and, in reply to an inquiry from his 
Lordship, the engineer having assured him that he was 
confident the boiler would heat the whole, and heat them 
all well, his Lordship desired him to inform us that the 
boiler was then fixed, and heating, in a most satisfactory 
manner, various ranges of forcing-houses 700 feet in length; 
but that there were situated in the immediate neighbourhood 
various other hothouses, to the extent of upwards of 800 
feet more, and to have our opinion if the boiler would do the 
whole. 
In reply we begged that his Lordship would have the 
whole connected; and that so confident were we of success, 
that we would warrant the boiler to do the whole thoroughly 
and efficiently, and to his Lordship’s satisfaction. His 
Lordship assented, and the whole is now done, the hot¬ 
houses in various ranges measuring in length 1500 feet, and 
the pipes heated by this one boiler measure 10,000 feet 
long, and one of the houses, fifty feet by twenty feet, is 
situated 438 feet from the one boiler. 
Now, facts are stubborn things, dispute them who may. 
Lord Bridport, and Mr. Davis, his gardener, are indisputable 
references, and those who like can go and see the one boiler 
doing all the work here stated ; others who like can write to 
them. We do not, as yet, actually refer to his Lordship, be¬ 
cause we have not positively had his formal sanction so to 
do; but we think his Lordship will, with pleasure, answer 
any inquiry. At all events, we will take the liberty of say¬ 
ing that any one may apply to Mr. Davis, the gardener.— 
J. Weeks, Chelsea. 
THE LADY DOWN’S SEEDLING GRAPE. 
The opinion I ventured to give of Lady Doivn's Seedling 
Grape, and which you were good enough to insert in The 
Cottage Gardener, was only a qualified one, formed upon 
slender and insufficient data. I beg, therefore, to say that I 
have just paid a visit to the garden where it is this year 
fruiting for the first time, and I am in justice hound to say 
that the condemnation passed upon it was premature and 
unmerited; hut that opinion was founded solely on a sample J 
of some berries which were sent me two years ago. 
As I consider, therefore, that the sample was merely in- j 
dicative of bad cultivation, I may observe that the fruit I 
have now seen was, in many respects, deserving of praise. 
The berries are large, oval, and covered with a fine bloom ; 
and, though the bunch was not yet ripe, the flavour was 
decidedly good. The skin, certainly, is thick, and it seems 
to require considerable time to ripen; but it is a fine, fleshy 
Grape, and will, I engage to say, keep as long as any late 
variety. It appears, also, to be a good setter and free bearer; j 
but it requires another season or two to speak decidedly of I 
its habit in this respect. Upon the whole, I certainly think 
that where there is plenty of room it is well deserving of a 
rafter; and, to get it in perfection, perhaps it would be as 
well to plant it by the side of a Muscat. —H. M., Sleaford. 
