This section is from the book "Commercial Gardening Vol1", by John Weathers (the Editor). Also available from Amazon: Commercial Gardening, A Practical & Scientific Treatise For Market Gardeners.
Generally speaking it will not pay a nurseryman or market grower either to set his own boilers or pipes or to build his own greenhouses. That is work best done by horticultural builders who make a speciality of it. And yet many growers take a pride in being able to build their own glasshouses, and to set their own boilers and pipes. Then they can blame nobody else if anything goes wrong. The writer has had some experience in these directions, but he would not care to proclaim his work as being altogether a model of superb workmanship. At the same time it is useful for a grower, and especially one with limited means, to be able, at a pinch, to build a greenhouse, or set or repair a boiler. It sometimes happens, usually on a frosty night in the depth of winter, that a boiler springs a leak, or a pipe cracks or bursts in some place. Under these conditions it is no use waiting for the expert to arrive, while the crops are being frozen or scalded to death, and prompt measures must be taken. The old boiler may have to be taken out at once and replaced with a secondhand one on the premises, or a defective section of piping must be replaced immediately with a sound one. It is in special circumstances like these that a man who understands how to set a boiler or replace a pipe is of the greatest value. There is nothing lost therefore in acquiring a practical and theoretical knowledge of the art of heating by boiler and pipes.
Fig. 176. - Stevens' Improved Cornish Boiler.
Fig. 177. - Sectional "Robin Hood" Boiler.
Fig. 178. - The "Mona" Boiler.
 
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