122 GLASS HOUSES. 



XI.— Glass Houses. By A. Forsyth, C.M.H.S., St. Mary's 

 Church, Torquay. 



(Communicated March 6, 1851.) 



The present seems an appropriate time to discuss the principles 

 of glass house building, the subject having been brought so pro- 

 minently before the public by the great glass house in Hyde 

 Park, and by the pamphlet lately published by Mr. Rivers, 

 entitled the ' Orchard House,' or, more properly, the orchard 

 under glass. Mr. Rivers proposes to rival the climate of the 

 most favoured locality in France, and produce good fruit, in 

 great variety and abundance, in any part of Great Britain, 

 ■without artificial heat, merely by means of sheet-glass, fixed in 

 sash-bars, cut into proper shape at tlie saw-mills. These two 

 examples, out of hundreds tliat might be adduced, are sufficient 

 to show that the subject of glass house buildmg is taking forcible 

 possession of people's minds at this time ; and as these are to be 

 looked upon as only the first fruits of cheap glass, a rich harvest 

 may yet be expected if the spirit can only be kept alive and 

 rightly directed. 



In very many instances the main-spring of action seems to be 

 economy, whereby a great extent of glass house is to be realized 

 at a small outlay. This is particularly the case with the " Or- 

 chard House" above mentioned. All walls, flues, pipes, stages, 

 pavement, and indeed most of the other articles hitherto used in 

 glass house building, are omitted. Advantage is taken of any 

 existing fence, such as a hedge, and over this hedge-bank a 

 glass shade is thrown, simply propping up tlie roof with posts 

 and rails after the fashion of a mason's shed. Glass houses, 

 therefore, which formerly were expensive luxuries, can be set 

 up after this fashion, and put in good working order, for a less 

 sum than would be required to erect a good thatched cow-shed 

 of the same area in the corner of a paddock. The exterior 

 appearance of these orchard iiouses is not very inviting, but 

 still it must be owned that they are palaces compared with the 

 melon-frames of the olden time ; and the orchard house has this 

 advantao"e over the melon-frame, that one can walk in it, and it 

 is moreover, free from tliose masses of filth above ground that 

 all amateurs, and especially ladies, so much dislike. Mr. Rivers 

 writes from practice, and proposes no mean advantages to horti- 

 culture. He takes the climate of Angers as a standard, and, by 

 means of a cold frame, has realized in Hertfordshire the fruits of 

 Ano"ers, and that at the same time of the year ; and, if others 

 can succeed as well, the grapes and figs of the north-west of 

 France will thus be cheaply brought to the doors of our farm- 



