The communication of Loring W. Puffer in the August Monthly, relating to heating small greenhouses, is full of sound sense, and a good article in every particular with the exception of the last sentence, where he says, "One of Hitchings' 'boilers ' that would do the same work would cost about one hundred and fifty dollars." This is such a glaring mistake that it is due Mr. Hitchings, as well as the readers of the Monthly, to set them right in the matter.

Several years ago it occurred to me that if hot water was a good heater of greenhouses, the same method could be applied to the heating of my offices, of which I have three in a suite, containing in the aggregate, six thousand cubic feet, the greater part facing north. I purchased from Hitchings a No. 3 Base Burning Water Heater for heating small greenhouses, paying him (or the same sixty-five dollars. I put it up in a little room in one corner of the office and attached five hundred feet of 1 1/4 inch gas pipe. I have always been perfectly satisfied with its work; the fire is never out from fall to spring, and the temperature can be kept up to 700 or 8o° at times when zero or much lower prevails outside. The average consumption of coal is fifty pounds per day. A small base burner by Hitchings, warranted to heat a conservatory of three thousand feet, costs forty-five dollars, just one dollar more than the homemade one of Mr. Puffer. I have purchased several of these for my neighbors, and know the price.

They are as easy to operate as a parlor stove and need very little attention, and while there may be many others in the market equally as good, my experience is limited to only one kind which gives perfect satisfaction.

Seneca Falls, N. Y.

[The paper of Dr. Puffer was, as stated, a reproduction. Having been written many years ago, it was not noted, as in justice it might have been by the Editor, that the cost of these articles has been much reduced of late years. - Ed. G. M].