OF AGRICULTURE. 201 



the rich mansion. It was kept at a high tem- 

 perature, and was made use of for growing, 

 under cold skies, the golden fruit and the be- 

 witching flowers of the South. Now, and 

 especially since the progress of technics allows 

 of making cheap glass and of having all the 

 woodwork, sashes and bars of a greenhouse 

 made by machinery, the glasshouse becomes 

 appropriated for growing fruit for the million, 

 as well as for the culture of common vegetables. 

 The aristocratic hothouse, stocked with the 

 rarest fruit trees and flowers, remains ; nay, 

 it spreads more and more for growing luxuries 

 which become more and more accessible to 

 the great number. But by its side we 

 have the plebeian greenhouse, which is heated 

 for only a couple of months in winter and the 

 still more economically built " cool green- 

 house," which is a simple glass shelter a big 

 " cool frame " and is stuffed with the humble 

 vegetables of the kitchen garden : the potatoes, 

 the carrots, the French beans, the peas and the 

 like. The heat of the sun, passing through the 

 glass, but prevented by the same glass from 

 escaping by radiation, is sufficient to keep it 

 at a very high temperature during spring and 

 early summer. A new system of horticulture 

 the market-garden under glass is thus rapidly 

 gaining ground. 



