There are few subjects of importance to gardeners that are not discussed in the pages of the 'Gardener' by thoroughly practical men, and it cannot be said that the heating of our horticultural structures has been left out in the cold. The qualities of various boilers, the importance of economy of fuel, the circulation of the water in pipes, etc, have been discussed at some length; bad stoke-holes and bad stokers have been condemned, and the advantage of improved stoke-holes and good stokers have been commended. In the face of this, it may seem superfluous for me to write more on the subject. The economic management of our fires is, however, a matter of sufficient importance, I venture to think, to warrant its being again brought before your young readers at this season, many of whom will be fresh to the stoke-holes since the publication of some of those articles. I shall confine my remarks to a few plain directions as to the management of the "fires," and will commence by pointing out what has to be done in the morning. In the first place, pull the damper well out and keep the ashpit-door closed, so that the smoke and dust do not come out at the furnace-door when you begin to stir the fire.

If the fire is well burned down, take the shovel or soot-hoe and push as much of the fire as you can back to the further end of the furnace. If there are any clinkers, they will probably be run together in a cake all over the bars. If it is cool and strong enough to be got out whole, so much the better. To do this, insert the instrument provided for this purpose under it at one side, turn it right over so as to leave all the hot ashes, and lift it out, balancing it on the bent end of your iron. When clinkers do not come out whole, the pieces must be picked out as well as possible and placed on one side at once, so as to avoid, as far as possible, having to breathe the sulphur emitted by them while finishing your operations. If the fire is not sufficiently burned down to admit of this being done, do not poke it up, as fifty per cent of men do, breaking the clinkers up and mixing them with the cinders, from which it is impossible to separate them; but insert the poker parallel with the bars, and work it backward and forward without using it as a lever to disturb the fire in any way, but simply dislodge the ashes, and so admit air. When coal is used, and has got caked over, break it a little, and leave it till it is burned down, when the clinkers may be taken out.

Some young men keep continually stirring at their fire till they get it half full of small clinkers, which generally ends in its being found out some morning when it can be least spared. Coals such as are used for this purpose do require a certain amount of stirring, but a coke-fire should never be stirred except in the manner above described. Slow combustion stoves are perhaps the worst form of boiler to keep clear of clinkers, because of the smallness of the furnace-door. The best plan I find is to get a 1/4- or 3/8-inch iron rod with 3 inches of its length bent at right angles and slightly flattened, open both furnace and ashpit doors, insert the bent end of this rod between the bars from below and pull it forward, allowing the ashes, cinders, and clinkers to fall out at the former, when the cinders can be separated from the clinkers and ashes and returned to the furnace. If this is done morning and evening these useful little boilers are very little trouble, and answer their purpose very well indeed.

Cleaning

Cleaning is a very important matter, much more so when coal is the fuel employed. There are some boilers that virtually clean themselves, such as the Upright Tubular and Slow Combustion class, where the whole of the heating surface is exposed to the direct action of the fire. It is, however, a very different matter when you have a series of horizontal flues or smoke-tubes in connection with a boiler. It is of the greatest importance for the man who has to keep a boiler clean that he knows every turn the smoke has to take, from where it leaves the furnace till it enters the chimney. Without this knowledge he is like a man groping in the dark in a strange place. Cleaning should be done twice or three times a-week, as it is found necessary, and the proper time to do it is before the fire is disturbed in the morning. The flue leading to the chimney should always be the first to receive attention, making sure that all the soot settling at the bottom of the chimney is cleared out, and each flue in turn till the furnace itself is reached, the outlet of which should have the same special attention as the top flue.

Without this thorough cleaning there must necessarily be a great waste of heat, in consequence of the heating surface being clogged with soot and ashes.

The Damper And Furnace-Doors

How often do we find these defective? We often look in vain for a damper, and at times find the ashpit-door absent, or in a dilapidated condition, next to useless. And yet you might just as reasonably expect a seaman to guide his ship in its course without a rudder, as expect any one to manage a fire on economic principles without these. The damper should be built into the chimney as near the top of the furnace as convenient, should slide in an iron frame, and fit the flue exactly. The furnace-doors should be as near air-tight as possible, and the ashpit-door should have a ventilator to admit a little air when only a slow fire is wanted. But to proceed. Having cleaned out the boiler-flues, and cleared the furnace of clinkers, pull the fire together, add a moderate supply of fuel, close the furnace - door, leave the ashpit-door open a little, and the damper about a couple of inches out. This arrangement will generally get up a fair fire in an hour, which will answer for general purposes. But the amount of draught must always be regulated according to circumstances. The state of the wind and weather, and the amount of work the boiler has to do, etc, must always be considered. After sharp frosty nights we often have bright mornings.

The stoker finding his temperatures low, is too apt to get up a brisk fire quickly, which is a great mistake. Sun-heat is always preferable to fire-heat, and one at a time is quite sufficient. When there is a prospect of sun, the fire should be attended to an hour after, a little more fuel added, both furnace-doors closed, and the damper left out just so far as to let the smoke pass up the chimney, and nothing more. It will thus keep up a steady beat till the afternoon. During cold stormy days is the time when a brisk fire is needed; and this is not best attained by cramming as much fuel into the furnace as it will hold, and keeping up a roaring draught till it is consumed, as some seem to think. First get up a nice clear fire, supply a small quantity of fuel, which soon ignites, apply the damper to moderate the draught, and by admitting a greater amount of air by the ashpit-door than there is outlet for at the damper, the heated air is forced into the upper flues of the boiler slowly, and so parts with heat instead of rushing up the chimney. When the fire has been kept quiet all day, it must be stirred up at closing-time to keep up the temperature, and be ready for evening arrangement.

If it freezes, a brisk fire will be needed - in mild weather a moderate one; but it should in no case be allowed to burn down too low when made up for the night. The hotter the furnace is then the better, if much heat is required; because whatever fuel is put on soon gets ignited, and there being no draught, it lasts for hours without being consumed. Do not use the poker to stir the fire when making up, but draw the fire together and beat it down gently, and do not heap on too much fuel: shut both furnace-doors tight, and adjust the damper so that there is just room for the smoke to get slowly away. It is a very common custom to leave the furnace-door open when made up for the night; and when there is no damper, or the ashpit-door defective, there is no other means of keeping the fire in. But the cold air passing over the top of the fire is bound to cool the boiler, and should therefore be avoided. A shovelful of moist ashes thrown on the front of the fire in such cases is a good plan to make sure of its not burning too fast.

R. Inglis.