Hothouse

“ It is possible to do without the stove if the floor of the house is covered with manure and a goodly supply is packed around the sides of the house, but as that would be more expensive and much more laborious, I advise you to adopt the stove plan, especially as it involves none of the harrowing niceties usually attached to running hothouse heating apparatus, there being no water-pipes to freeze or injury to crops if the fire happens to run down or even go out altogether. ”

“ After at last finding admittance in a hotel, I proceeded to the Botanic garden, which is situated about a mile from the town, surrounding the south and east sides of the university, and containing a very handsome range of hothouses, from three to four hundred feet in length, which also form nearly a line, or a range, with the principle front of the university. The hothouses are in five divisions, and contain an extensive collection of Ferns and Graminea; many of the stove plants were in a very luxuriant state, and looked very healthy. ”

“ In this establishment there are several very good hothouses for plants. In one of the ranges is placed a circular shaped conservatory, heated by hot water, on rather a novel construction; these hot water pipes being formed into perpendicular columns, rising from the floor to the height of from ten to twelve feet. These pipes, thus constructed, gave out a great command of heat, and answered the original intention very satisfactorily. The plants in this nursery garden were very well grown, and all in a healthy state. ”

“ At a contracted part of it a wooden bridge is constructed across, springing on both sides on elevated well-formed artificial pieces of rockwork. In the pleasure ground are three very pretty curvilinear iron-bar hothouses, erected by Baily, of London, and devoted to the growth of exotic plants and pine-apples, which evidently fully answered in that climate their intended purpose. Here is also a good kitchen garden, with numerous low houses and pits for the growth of the pine, vine and peach, as well as one devoted to orchideous plants, a collection of which was just then forming. ”

“ The flowers and fruit blow and ripen in a hot-house, as they do in the gardens in summer. This is called forcing them; that is, making them more forward than they would naturally be at this season. When you go to see Lady Beauchamp, perhaps she will allow you to look at her hot-house; then you will understand better what I have said.
Julia. Thank you, mamma; I believe I understand you. But why is so much glass used? If it be necessary to keep a hot-house very warm, I think brick walls would answer better than glass: bricks are thicker than glass. ”

“ There must be lights in sheltered corners of the fireplace, by the writing-desk, on each side of the dressing-table, and so on.
Then I consider the heating of the room. We Americans are slaves to steam heat. We ruin our furniture, our complexions, and our dispositions by this enervating atmosphere of too much heat. In my own houses I have a fireplace in each room, and I burn wood in it. There is a heating-system in the basement of my house, but it is under perfect control. I prefer the normal heat of sunshine and open fires. ”

“ The plans of this house are compact, the rooms opening into each other in such a manner as to afford easy communication and economy in heating. The porch is spacious, and more pleasant than the long, narrow verandah. The supply of water for all purposes is from a filtering cistern, which is connected with the kitchen sink, by a pump. The entire house [36] may be heated by a furnace, hot water, or steam, as is most preferable; or stoves may be used in nearly all the rooms, if first cost is to be closely considered. ”

“ The whole house is dirty, and is filled with the mingled odors from the cooking-stoves and the sinks. In the winter the rooms are kept too close by the stoves, and in the summer the natural heat is made tenfold greater by the fires for cooking and washing. Pass these houses on a hot night, and you will see the streets in front of them filled with the occupants, and every window choked up with human heads, all panting and praying for relief and fresh air. ”

“ During part of the year we need broad verandas, large windows and doors so arranged that we can get a current of air through the rooms. The heat from the kitchen distresses us, and the refrigerator is regarded with more affection than the fireplace. In a few months the veranda only serves to shut out the precious sunlight, and double sashes for the windows may be desirable to keep out the cold too easily admitted by the doors. We draw close to the hearth, piled high with blazing logs, and rejoice that the slight heat from the kitchen chimney is not wasted on the outer air. ”

“ The extreme cheapness of artificial heat made a conservatory a necessary luxury of every dwelling. The same pipes that supplied the dwelling rooms with warmth, supplied the hot-house also, but it was conveyed to the plants by a very different process.
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They used electricity in their hot-houses to perfect their fruit, but in what way I could not comprehend; neither could I understand their method of supplying plants and fruits with carbonic acid gas. They manufactured it and turned it into their hot-houses during sleeping hours. ”

“ A lattice is all that separates the kitchen from the counter; this is so, in order to facilitate social intercourse between the cook and the customers, and also to enable the secretary, no matter if she is engaged in stirring the chocolate or washing the dishes, to keep a weather eye on what is going on outside. But the triumph of my hut-plan is the window-seat. Half-way down the hut we have a stove, a stove which looks as big as an engine-boiler, a stove which makes the eyes of all beholders fairly pop with admiration. ”

“ The kitchen fire-place is no larger than is requisite for roasting; all the other processes being performed either in the oven, the steaming vessels, or at the gas stoves. These stoves are placed in the bay of a large window, thus giving the cook the advantage of a good light above the level of the pans. A close boiler at the back of the grate affords steam for the cooking utensils and for a hot closet; it also contains a coil of iron tubing, through which the water of a bath, placed in a dressing-room on the chamber floor, is made to circulate when a hot bath is wanted. ”

“ The stoves were equal to the occasion. They heated the roof garden perfectly, and were of great decorative value.
Encouraged by this success I purchased another porcelain stove, this time a cream-colored porcelain one, and used it in a hallway in an uptown house. It was the one thing needed to give the hall great distinction. Since then I have used a number of these stoves, and I wonder why our American manufacturers do not make them. They are admirable for heating difficult rooms—outdoor porches, and draughty halls, and rooms not heated by furnaces. ”

“ The hot-water boiler not only supplies unlimited baths, but may be devised to heat the house. In every Canadian home a stove in the cellar warms the rooms above by means of drums and fans. We might do much the same in England with our hot-water pipes. These should certainly run through the linen-press and clothes cupboards, and terminate in bathroom spirals. On these, towels and rough sheets could be dried and aired. A face cloth always warm is one of the luxuries in our House Comfortable. ”

“ We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove, is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its boiling kettles moistens the air.
Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. ”

“ Fireplace, the full width of the hut in one end, where all the cooking and baking for forty or fifty men is done, and where flour, sugar, etc., are kept in open bags. Fire, like a very furnace. Buckets of tea and coffee on roasting beds of coals and ashes on the hearth. Pile of “brownie” on the bare black boards at the end of the table. Unspeakable aroma of forty or fifty men who have little inclination and less opportunity to wash their skins, and who soak some of the grease out of their clothes—in buckets of hot water—on Saturday afternoons or Sundays. ”

“ Where a house is heated by a furnace, the style of this should be selected with great care, special regard being had to the economy of fuel. The systems of steam-heating, hot-water heating, or hot-air heating have each their merits, depending on the location of the house and the climate of the region. The cellar can also be used as a storeroom for those things not affected by the heat of the furnace, such as perishable food requiring an ice-box or a cool place, vegetables, especially those with a penetrating odor ”

“ Somehow, our architects and builders habitually neglect to study the requirements of the kitchen, but persist in constructing for this use a plainly constructed room, generally cramped in size, with no means of escaping the great heat generated by the range or stove, which in the hot months of summer is almost unbearable. If men were often obliged to remain in such a place, a large part of the day during the hot season, they would be quick to seize upon any plan which would mitigate the heat. ”

“ When any of the old people of the neighbourhood, men or women, are seized with pains, they at once have recourse to the sweat-house, which is brought to the proper temperature by placing therein a large turf fire, after the manner of an oven, which is left until it is burned quite down, the door being a flat stone and air-tight, and the roof, or outside of the house, being covered with clay, to the depth of about a foot, to prevent the least escape of heat. ”

“ The pipes and the kitchen itself once settled about, the next steps to take are towards proper ventilation and draught exclusion. One cannot ventilate with a draught, yet how few people realise this; if they did, colds would go quite out of fashion and everyone would be much happier than at the present moment. As a rule one door in the orthodox kitchen opens straight on the open air, and here the tradespeople come and linger while waiting about for the orders which should never be called for except under special stress of circumstances. ”

“ The stove-room, where a huge fire is kept up day and night all the year round, is situated at the back of the bath building. It is underground, and a large portion of its floor is covered with piles of logs, the fuel used for heating the water of the bath. The furnace itself is very much like an oven upon which is placed a huge boiler. ”

“ The Franklin stoves in the large room would give the radiating warmth and cheerful blaze of an open fire, while radiating heat also from all their surfaces. In cold weather, the air of the larger chambers could be tempered by registers admitting warm air from the stove-room, which would always be sufficiently moistened by evaporation from the stationary boiler. The conservatories in winter, protected from frost by double sashes, would contribute agreeable moisture to the larger rooms. ”

“ The kitchen should be fitted with a gas or electric cooker and a gas or coke hot-water furnace. The front room is warmed by a gas stove, and in order to make up for the extra work entailed by the basement, a service lift is installed, with double hatches opening from kitchen and pantry, and from dining-room and smoking-room, which are directly over the kitchen and pantry. ”

“ Under the kitchen block is a basement containing the boiler for heating the dining-rooms and another for the supply of hot water to baths and sinks, with in some cases also a hot-air furnace for heating drying-rooms, for drying the men's clothing when they come in wet from a route-march or field day. ”

“ Let a man sweat once a week in a hot-house, and be well rubbed and froted with a plump juicy wench and clean linen.
1603. Shakspeare, Measure for Measure, ii., 1. Now she professes a hot-house, which is a very ill house too.
1606. The Return from Parnassus, i., 2 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, ix., 115) . He cannot swagger it well in a tavern, nor domineer in a hot-house.
1616. Jonson, Epigrams, ‘On the New Hot-house.’ Where lately harboured many a famous whore, A purging bill now fixed upon the door Tells you it is a hot-house: So it may, And still be a whore-house. They’re synonyma. ”

“ Such a building should be of slow-burning construction with fire-proof stairways, and should provide ample light for every room, and sufficient ground should be left free to provide adequate air space and attractive surroundings. It should be provided with a central heating plant for heat and hot water. The kitchens should be heated and equipped with gas stoves and laundry tubs. ”

“ One or more servants in large houses have the entire charge of the stoves. They fill them with wood the last thing at night, and light them some hours before the family rise in the morning. In the sleeping-rooms they are kept in all night. In the houses of the poor, one stove of huge proportions serves for every purpose. It serves not only to heat the hut, but to bake their bread, and for all sorts of cookery, and to dry their clothes, articles of which are generally seen hung up round it. ”

“ A farm house should never be built without an ample, open fireplace in its kitchen, and other principally occupied rooms; and in all rooms where stoves are placed, and fires are daily required, the open Franklin should take place of the close or air-tight stove, unless extraordinary ventilation to such rooms be adopted also. ”