768 



HORTICULTURE 



that "one-third of the front side of the roof, for the 

 whole length of the house, be formed of glass-work," 

 and In order that the tall, perpendicular sides of the 

 house should have as "much glass as possible," he said 

 that "the piers between the sashes are commonly made 

 of good timber, from 6 to 8 or 10 inches thicls, according 



1092 First greenhouse in Chicago (1835 or 1836). 



to their height." "The width of the windows for the 

 glass sashes may be ."> or G feet; * * * the bottom 

 sashes must reach within a foot or 18 inches of the floor 

 of the house and their top reach within 8 or 10 inches of 

 the ceiling. The panes in the roof should be 6 inches 

 by 4, this size "being not only the strongest, but by 

 much the cheapest, and they should lap over each other 

 about half an inch." But the sides or"front lights must 

 be made with large panes of glass." Many or most of 

 the early plant-houses had removeable tops, made of 

 sash. On the change from the old to the new ideas, 

 Alfred Henderson writes as follows: "The first pub- 

 lished advocacy of the fixed-roof system was made by 

 Mr. Peter B. Mead, in the 'New York Horticulturist,' 

 in 1857. Before that, all greenhouse structures for com- 

 mercial purposes wei-e formed of portable sashes, and 

 nearly all were constructed as 'lean-to's,' with high 

 back walls, and none were connected. All were separate 

 and detached, being placed at all angles, without plan 

 or system. Then, too, the heating was nearly all done 

 by horizontal smoke-flues, or manure fermenting, al- 

 though there was a crude attempt at heating by hot 

 water by some private individuals as early as 1833. 

 The first use of heating by hot water on anything like a 

 large .scale, however,was in 1839, when Hitchings & Co., 

 of this city, heated a large conservatory for Mr. William 

 Niblo, of New York ; and yet for nearly twenty years 

 after this time heating by hot water was almost exclu- 

 sively confined to greenhouses and graperies on private 

 places, as few professional florists in those days could 

 afford to indulge in such luxuries. All this is changed 

 now. The tise of steam, hot water under pressure, and 

 the gravity system of hot-water heating are almost uni- 

 versally in operation, the hot-air flue having been rele- 

 gated to the past. The best evidence of progress is in 

 the fact that the florist has not waited for the trades- 

 man, but has brought about these improvements him- 

 self." 



Much attention was early given to the slope of the 

 roof, in order that the greatest amount of sunlight might 

 be obtained. Early in this century the curvilinear roof 

 came inio use, as the various angles which it presents 

 to the sun were supposed to catch the maxinnim number 

 of the incident rays. The sides of the house remained 

 high, for the most part, until near the middle of this 

 century. All this shows that the early glasshouse was 

 modeled after the dwelling or other buildings, and that 

 it had not developed into a structure in which plants 

 were grown for commercial purposes. 



The modern commercial forcing-house, with direct 

 roof, low sides, and heated by steam or hot water in 

 closed circuits, is mostly a development of the last thirty 

 years. Its forerunner was the propagating-pit of the 

 nurseryman. If anything is lost in sunlight by adopting 

 a simple roof, the loss is more than compensated by the 

 lighter framework and larger glass. In the forcing- 

 house, all architectural ambition is sacrificed to the one 

 desire to create a commercial garden in the frosty 

 months. 



Lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carnations, violets, 

 and various other plants are now grown as crops under 

 glass roofs, whilst a generation ago they were generally 

 not forced at all for market or were grown mostly under 

 frames. With the simplifying and cheapening of the 



HORTICULTURE 



glasshouse, amateur flower and vegetable growing has 

 acquired a new impetus, and the business of the retail 

 florist has grown amazingly in the recent years. 



Some idea of the increase of the demand for plants 

 may be obtained from the sale of flower pots. A. H. 

 Hews, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose ancestors 

 began the manufacture of pots before 1765, reports that 

 for a period of twenty-two years, from 1788 to 1810 the 

 accounts of the sales of pots "cover about as many pages 

 as we now often use in one day; and the amount in 

 dollars and cents does not compare with single sales of 

 the year 1894." He also compared the sales for 1889 and 

 1894 and "found the increase as ten to one; or, in round 

 numbers, 700,000 flower pots in the former year and 

 7,000,000 in the latter; and if the same factory can in 

 1920, twenty-five years later, produce and sell 70,000,- 

 000, we shall verily be living in a land of flowers." 



One of the earliest greenhouse builders was Frederic 

 A. Lord, who built his first houses, according to Taft, 

 in Buffalo in 1855, and who, in 1872, entered into part- 

 nership with W. A. Burnham, at Irvington, on the Hud- 

 son. In very recent years a new impetus has been given 

 to glasshouse building and work by the establishment of 

 the agricultural experiment stations and the extension 

 of horticultural teaching in the colleges. 



HoRTicuLTt'RE IN CALIFORNIA. — California Horticul- 

 ture is in the main patterned after the South-European 

 types, and to this extent it originated from Spanish- 

 Mexican sources. The Horticulture of California's high 

 mountain valleys approximates more closely to that of 

 colder regions, while the Horticulture of the Pacific 

 slope, north of California, becomes more and more dif- 

 ferent from the South-European types, but still has 

 many characteristics of its own separating it sharply 

 from that of the Atlantic slope. The first horticultural 

 experiments in California were at the missions of the 

 Peninsula (Baja or Lower California), where 22 missions 

 were founded between 1697 and 1797. Here the Mission 

 Fathers introduced the date palm; also oranges, lemons, 

 limes, pineapiilis. lian.inas, olives, figs, pomegranates, 

 peaches, quinci-.;. |ilums, apples, pears and grapes. 

 They shippi'd t(. .^b.nterey and the northern missions 

 large quantities of dried figs, grapes, dates and peaches. 

 The Upper California missions received seeds, cions, 

 etc., from those of Lower California, as well as from 

 Mexico. The first of these missions was established in 

 1769 at San Diego by the Franciscans, under the leader- 

 ship of Father Junipero Serra, whose name visitors to 



rcial greenhouse— 



the California State Building at the World's Fair will 

 recall in connection with the great date palm from the 

 Mission Valley of San Diego. This palm was raised 

 from seed which Junipero Serra planted about 1770. 

 Twenty-one missions were founded by the Franciscans, 

 the last one in 1823, and at all but one or two of them 

 there were important collections of the fruits of south- 



