Within the past fifteen years the people of this country have been given a great object lesson in the economy of fuel. The discovery of natural gas has led tens of thousands of people to consider in their own homes the only really scientific method of economizing fuel. Coal we have had for about a hundred years, and in all that time we have known that gas is also a fuel. We knew all along that gas could be used in cook stoves and in steam and hot-water boilers and in hot-air furnaces, and yet it is only since the discovery of natural gas that we have as a people wakened to a full sense of the value of gas fuels. Even now, while the matter is well understood (see The American Garden for October, page 346), it is difficult to realize that gas is better than coal. Natural gas is only found in a limited district. It is wholly uncertain how long it will last, but if the gas territory should grow smaller and smaller, year by year, even if it should wholly fail, its benefits will be lasting. Coal must and probably always will be our great fuel. Natural gas has taught us how to use it. Coal maybe used directly in our furnaces or indirectly, as when it is turned into a gas and then burned as a fuel.

There can be no question that the indirect method is the best and the time may come when it will be largely used.

To ascertain if gas can be used to heat hot-air, hot-water and steam boilers for dwellings and greenhouses.

The American Garden wrote to all the leading makers of furnaces and boilers in the country and received fourteen letters in reply from the best manufacturers in the business. Of these, ten report that their furnaces and boilers are already used with natural gas. Two report that they have not sold any furnaces or boilers for use with natural gas, but are sure that fuel can be used in their apparatus. Two others report that their apparatus is not adapted to natural gas. Natural gas, as far as its actual use as fuel is concerned, does not differ from artificial gas. In fact, some of these makers report that street gas is used in their systems. In addition to these letters from the makers, letters were received from florists and others reporting the successful use of natural gas in heating greenhouses both by steam and hot water.

In England small greenhouse heating apparatuses burning street gas, have been used in a limited way for some time. Gas fuels, both natural and artificial, are used in cook stoves in all our cities and not less than ten thousand families use gas stoves to-day in this country for all their cooking. Hotels and restaurants use gas largely, and the great Brunswick Hotel, New York, has recently entirely removed its coal ranges and has put in gas ranges for all the cooking of that elegant and fashionable hotel. The writer's own house depends wholly on gas for cooking, bread-making and for all the hot water used in the laundry and bath room.

The cost of, gas may be a trifle more than coal, but the real cost per gallon of hot water in the bath or wash tubs and per pound of bread baked is less, because no wages are paid for lugging coal from the cellar and carrying out ashes to the yard. There is no dust, no smoke, no delayed breakfast, no coal burning for hours after the cooking is done. Breakfast is served inside of twenty minutes after the kitchen is opened in the morning and the kitchen is clean, sweet and free from dust and heat. It is cold on winter mornings, but a register from the furnace soon warms the room and one burner in the stove keeps it warm all day.

The price of gas has been $2, and the average cost has been $8.65 per month. For this we had the entire cooking, including bread-making for three people and occasional company, all the hot water for the bath room and all the hot water for the laundry, and for warming the room on cold days; also light for two gas lamps burning four hours every night. The price is very high and in many places it would be less and the cost less. A good range with water-back would consume not less than one ton of coal a month, or $6 for the coal and 50 cents for kindling, and then there would be the cost of the two gas lamps. Besides this there would have been the cost of service in handling the coal and wood and removing ashes. If these things have not to be done, clearly the wages paid for service are gained by using the service in other directions. The subject is a large one and next month it is proposed to consider gas furnaces and stoves more in detail.

Charles Barnard.