

SECTION V. 



MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION. 



1. Workmanship. However excellent and adaptable may 

 be the design of a horticultural erection, if the work be badly 

 executed the structure will generally be defective in the work- 

 ing, and the trouble of management will be greatly increased. 

 Bad foundations, bad roofs, bad-fitting sashes, rendering them 

 difficult to open and shut, bad glazing, and bad workmanship of 

 every description, are too common to exist without being a very 

 perceptible evil, and one that is much complained of by practical 

 gardeners, upon whom the consequences of this method of con- 

 struction generally fall. In all regular work, coming under the 

 province of the architect or engineer, there is generally particu- 

 lar attention directed to the facility of working, and ingenuity 

 is exerted to its utmost limits to perfect and simplify those 

 facilities, however temporarily the structure or work may be 

 constructed. But horticultural buildings, relatively to civil 

 architecture, appear to be an anomalous class of structures, not 

 coming strictly within the province of the architect, except 

 in so far as they may be related to the house in an architectural 

 point of view, and hence they are more the subject of chance 

 or caprice in design, and of local convenience in execution, 

 than any other department of rural architecture. The subject 

 of horticultural architecture has not been deemed of sufficient 

 importance to induce civil architects to make themselves ac- 

 quainted with the principles on which plant-houses should be 

 constructed, or to consider the nature of workmanship in relation 

 to its work ; and, consequently, the construction of horticultural 

 buildings is either left wholly to gardeners, who understand 

 little of the science of architecture, or wholly to architects, who 

 understand as little of the science of horticulture. The conse- 

 quence, in either case, is generally incongruity in appearance, 

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