376 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 3, 1857. 
enjoyed it if they had not destroyed nearly all my roots. 
As for the scale, 1 have heard my dear mother urge that 
; if people would but make a point of using a preventive 
once a year we should seldom be troubled with it, and 
it should be applied the moment we have done blos¬ 
soming. All that would be necessary would be to 
j syringe us daily for about a week with soft-soap water, 
about one to two ounces to the gallon—not more. 
“ I may now conclude my grievous history, and can 
i only hope it may furnish useful hints to those who 
j desire to cultivate our family according to their natural 
i habits. Adieu!” 
In thus concluding the history of Camellia I would 
beg to recommend to those who are unsuccessful a close 
consideration of the cultural principles so emphatically 
pointed out. It is really astonishing that a plant with 
such simple and decided habits should by many be so 
misunderstood. Erbtngton. 
MESSRS. WEEKS AND CO.’S HORTICULTURAL 
ESTABLISHMENT, KING’S ROAD, CHELSEA. 
(Continued from page 367.) 
Following the run of the main flow and return pipes, 
after passing the stoves we find two ranges of pits lying 
across the line of the circulating heat —that is, the main 
flow is northwards from the boiler; and these ranges of 
pits stand east and west, so that the flow “ cuts across 
the pits in a straight line; and yet they could grow 
Pine-Apples or young Heaths in all these ranges, with 
sufficient top and bottom heat for Cayenne or Black 
Jamaica Pines; or, by turning the valve (patent) for 
bottom heat and the valve for top heat, and then 
covering the flow and return pipes across the pit with 
sawdust, you make cold pits of them in two seconds. 
Now, this is worth studying. The pipes which 
give the bottom heat are much deeper than the great 
flow pipe, and those for top heat are considerably above 
the level of the main flow. They say you cannot 
get circulation below the level of the return pipe if it 
enters the boiler at the bottom, but that is only a figure 
of speech. You can here get perfect heat and perfect 
circulation, and enough of both for any, plants a full 
yard below the level of the return pipe, or flow in any 
part of the nursery, or of the 5,000 feet of piping which 
are heated by the one boiler. This is easily managed 
anywhere. The top of Weeks’ boiler is just below the 
level of the return pipe, and the boiler itself is above 
five feet high; therefore you could get bottom heat or 
circulation at any depth below the flow pipe and the 
bottom of the boiler. No matter what the shape or size 
of a given boiler may be, if it is a close boiler the return 
pipe should enter at the lowest part, or bottom of the 
boiler, and rise immediately, to be just under the flow 
pipe. That is the first grand secret. Then let us 
suppose the flow and return pipes close together on 
starting from the boiler. They should neither rise nor 
dip one inch from the level line in all their course— 
that is the next grand secret. They are not exactly so 
level in this nursery, but they are not far from it. 
When you want more heat in a house or pit than the 
flow and return pipes give, or when you want bottom 
heat in addition, both should be supplied from the flow 
and return pipes, not by them, which is a grand mistake, 
or rather, an expensive no mistake; for the bottom 
heat you must consider before you set the boiler. Say 
to yourself, My flow and return pipes must go on the 
level through the front of a plant stove, an Orchid house, 
five Vineries, two Peach houses, then a Pine stove, Pine 
pits, with Melon and Cucumber pits or houses, say all j 
in one straight line as they are read. Whatever the 
depth below the level of the pipes may be at which j 
bottom heat is to be supplied to the Pines, Melons, or in 
any of the stove houses, the bottom of the boiler should 
be set as low as that, and a little lower would be all the 
better; but a flow and return, which would heat an 
Orchid house, would surely be too much for any of the 1 
Peach houses on this line ; and this raises another ques¬ 
tion, which has puzzled a thousand gardeners before now, j 
but, nevertheless, is as simple as the circulation of hot 
water. Water on the move will pass through a one- ! 
inch pipe as fast as it would through a four, five, or ten- i 
inch pipe; therefore a much less pipe will do to carry 
the circulation from the stoves through the Peach house 
to the Pine stove ; or say that four-inch pipes did for the 
stoves and first or early Vinery, three-inch for the rest of 
the Vineries, and two-inch for the Peach houses, and 
then up to the four-inch pipes on entering the Pine 
stove—a mere supposition to show the principle on 
which Mr. Weeks has managed to heat all his houses, 
pits, and frames on the most economical principle from 
one boiler. When he wants more heat in a house than 
the direct flow and return pipes can give he plugs both 
pipes, and with an inch pipe connects so many more 
pipes, and at every connection is one of his patent 
valves, which screws up and down, to increase or diminish 
the rush from the main flow. In very hard weather | 
every valve is up, and every pipe is at work; but on j 
the slightest rise of the weather-glass some of the valves 
get a turn or two, and the moment they perceive a 
change in the weather all valves which let flow into 
the greenhouse and to the half-hardy plants are screwed 
down tight, when they stop all circulation, and then 
less heat is supplied to the boiler. 
I got hold of the man who feeds the boiler, and cross- 
questioned him as if he were before Lord Campbell 
himself. When it was “tremendous” cold he liked to 
“look” at the fire oftener than three times a day of 
twenty-four hours; the consumption then would be just 
one bushel of best coke in the hour. No matter how 
much he put on at one time, he could “ feed her” in two 
minutes, and he showed me how. He filled a barrow 
with coke just outside the shed where the boiler is ; the i 
top of the boiler is just level with the floor of the shed ; 
it has a lid which comes “ off and on ” like the lid of a 
tea-kettle; he took it off, and we could stand over the 
opening and look down on the fire without smoke or 
smell of gases affecting us in the least; and this very 
much surprised me, but is accounted for by the great 
heat of the chimney, and the free draught “catching” 
sidewise all the gas, and smell, and smoke; but no 
smoke was seen. The boiler, as one may see from the 
engraving in Messrs. Weeks’ advertisement, is made of 
four-inch pipes, about five feet long; they are socketed 
at top and bottom into an iron hollow frame, as it were, 
and there are two rows of them standing a little apart. 
The outer row had twenty-two pipes, and the inner row 
twenty; they stood an inch and a half apart in the 
bottom frame, and hardly an inch in the top frame, 
which makes the boiler a little conical. Just round the 
pipes fire bricks and fire “clamps” are used, all the 
pipes being free for tbe fire to play round them ; and j 
they were as clean as a “ bright” grate, from the strength j 
of the fire burning all the “products of combustion,” j 
as the saying is. 
As I stood over the burning blaze I felt confident j 
a man might feed it from a sack over his shoulder j 
like a coal-heaver, with his face just over the centre of ' 
the fire; but it is fed from a barrow oy turning the 
barrow over as in any other kind of emptying. Then 
there is an ample “ staircase ” down to the ash pit, and 
there is a close door; but all that is done below is 
poking, and getting out clinkers and dust ashes. 
In one sentence, I may sura up that I have seen as 
much of hot-water systems as any gardener whatever, 
| and I would undertake to “ put up ” every pipe, and 
