256 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
\ March 27, 1890, 
plants by lifting them. What I consider a serious check to the plants 
is evident that your correspondent does not. I may be a little too sen¬ 
sitive for their well-being, for I do not consider it is necessary that the 
plants should flag to arrive at the conclusion that they have been 
seriously checked. 
It would interest me to know why your correspondent partially lifts 
them a fortnight or so before Anally lifting them for potting. No doubt, 
any roots that are broken by this operation will have time to form fresh 
fibres nearer home. The plants are also practically brought to a stand¬ 
still, a nd therefore less liable to suffer when lifted afterwards. What 
is this but a check to the plants 1 and if not, why take the pre¬ 
caution to soak them with water and syringe frequently to prevent 
flagging? 
On page 131 “S. Y.” takes exception to the soundness of a two- 
years system of raising these plants. I am not surprised, for at one 
time I should have questioned the wisdom of carrying out the practice 
I have advised. But circumstances alter cases, and experience has 
convinced me that a two-years system of raising plants would be much 
more suitable for the majority than raising the plants from either roots 
or cuttings, and have to depend upon producing good plants the same 
season. My advice, therefore, was intended for the many, not the few. 
In a large number of gardens where a great many plants have to be 
grown, and glass accommodation is limited, there is not the convenience 
either to propagate early or even to push the plants rapidly into growth. 
Many that are raised from roots in boxes are by the end of the season 
as strong as the pencil with which I am writing, and often 18 inches 
to 2 feet in length. These start strongly and even vigorously into 
growth, and if pushed on early are strong plants by the time cuttings 
are rooted. Time is not lost ; on the contrary, two months are practi¬ 
cally gained over raising plants from cuttings, unless the previous 
season is counted. At any rate, they are strong, with their first pots 
practically full of roots by the time cuttings are potted singly. For all 
with limited glass accommodation, small growers and amateurs, one- 
year-old Bouvardias to start with are the best. I have nothing to urge 
against raising the plants early and growing them in one year where 
there is convenience for early propagation and the accommodation of 
the plants afterwards. 
The size of pot in which the plants are grown is not sufficiently 
reliable upon which to found any judgment either of the size of the 
plants or the manner in which they flower. It is not uncommon to see 
plants in 4^ or 5-inch pots superior to others in pots 2 or 3 inches larger. 
I am no advocate for overpotting. The size of the pots in the case of the 
plants grown by “S. Y.,” depends entirely upon keeping them under 
glass the whole season. With the size, “ 7 and 8-inch,” that your corre¬ 
spondent advises, they might almost as well be placed out. Plants with 
almost unlimited root room are certain to make strong growth, though 
if placed outside, they would not fill the pots with roots or ripen suffi¬ 
ciently to flower profusely. 
Pinching is practised a month later than I advise, and this is neces¬ 
sary where they are raised from cuttings and allowed to run up a foot or 
more before they are pinched. By the system of pinching I have 
advocated we have bushy examples by the time your correspondent has 
run up his plant high enough for pinching. “ S. Y.’s ” principle of 
culture is not new, two years ago plants were grown here exactly in the 
same way, but the object was different. I wanted strong plants for 
yielding strong roots in quantity for stock, not flowers. The plants 
were grown rapidly the whole season, and had they been given a light 
suitable position for solidifying their wood, they would have flowered pro¬ 
fusely. But not one in a thousand have the convenience for encouraging 
the plants to make growth the same as our plants did that season. My 
advice, therefore, on page 12, was written for the guidance of the inex¬ 
perienced and purposely to suit the greatest number of cultivators, to 
whom freeing their houses of the plants for two months or more during 
the season would prove an advantage.— Wm. Baedney. 
HORTICULTURAL BUILDINGS AND HEATING 
APPARATUS. 
tA paper real by Mr. Henry Hope, horticnltural builder, at a meeting of Birmingham 
Gardeners' Association.] 
As the words ‘‘ horticultural buildings ” comprise a variety of struc- 
tures which of necessity differ in form, size, and purpose, I propose to 
divide this portion of my paper into the following parts :—Conserva¬ 
tories (as exhibition buildings), fruit-growing houses, plant and flower 
houses, and propagating houses. But before entering into the detail of 
these different classes, I should like to treat upon the history of horti¬ 
cultural buildings and heating apparatus from the earliest records we 
have down to the present century. 
History. 
In looking back at the history of horticultural buildings it is not 
uninteresting to observe the progress of the industry of glass-making. 
The origin of glass is uncertain ; it dates from a high antiquity. The 
Egyptians were acquainted with the substance 3500 years ago, and if 
we may trust the representations in Theban paintings glass vases were 
used for holding wine 1490 years before the Christian era. The glass 
of Egypt was generally opaque, specimens bearing the name of an 
Egyptian queen of the year 1445 B.c. being in existence. After the 
Egyptians the Phoenicians were the most renowned for skill in this 
industry. The fact that at Nineveh, Herculaneum, and Pompeii speci¬ 
mens of glass of different kinds have been found is a conclusive proof 
that glass was pretty generally known to the ancients, and renders it 
almost an impossibility to ascribe the invention to any particular 
nation. 
Early in the thirteenth century glass-making was practised by the 
Venetians, and from them it extended to Germany and France. The 
earliest manufacture of plate glass in England was begun in 1673, and 
from that date down to 1846 a duty was imposed on all glass made in 
this country. I will further on describe the different kinds of glass as 
now made and used. 
The records of greenhouses before the eighteenth century are very 
meagre indeed, and I think only a few solitary cases of buildings erected 
for horticultural purposes are known. As lately as the commencement 
of the present century ponderous structures were erected by wealthy 
people having about the same proportion of glass in their construction 
as the Birmingham Town Hall, and indeed some of these have come 
under my notice being on a smaller scale, very much like this building, 
having a heavy cornice of classical design with a pediment front and 
lead roof with plaster ceiling, the light being admitted through windows 
in the sides, which were divided by brick or stone piers. These buildings 
were known as conservatories. 
About the year 1700 greenhouses with brick sides and glass roofs, 
mostly of the “lean-to” pattern, were erected in gentlemen’s gardens 
throughout England. These were mostly constructed of timber and 
glazed with crown glass in squares about 4 inches wide, A very expen¬ 
sive method of constructing greenhouses was adopted in some gardens. 
It consisted of mahogany framework cased in thin copper. This system 
soon proved to be as inefficient as it was expensive, as the wet got in 
between the metal casings and the wood, causing rot. Small-sized glass 
was used almost without exception down to the year 1846, when all 
duty on the article, both excise and customs, was abolished. A Bir¬ 
mingham manufacturer named Jordan was, to the best of my knowledge, 
the first person who made a business of horticultural building, and he 
was, in fact, the inventor of those metallic houses of iron framing and 
copper sashes. Messrs. Jones & Clarke were an offshoot of this business, 
which was eventually carried on under the style of Clarke & Hope- 
About the year 1820 metallic houses came into very general use. The 
best of these were constructed of framing and sashes, the framing being 
of cast iron and the sashes of wrought iron and copper. A less expen¬ 
sive method was to build them entirely of wrought iron, with ordinary 
section of T and L iron, the opening lights only being made as sashes. 
1 do not think I need treat further of the history of horticultural build¬ 
ings, as, although I am aware that I have only touched lightly upon 
this branch of the subject, time will not permit me to go further 
into it. 
It is almost unnecessary to say that the methods of planning and 
erecting greenhouses has advanced in the last century with as rapid 
strides as any other trade to which English business men have devoted 
their attention, and whereas fifty years ago anyone wishing to build 
any garden houses would most probably have been compelled to plan 
them himself, and erect them by his own estate workmen, he can now 
command the services of at least a dozen first-class firms who make 
such work a speciality. 
With regard to the heating of buildings by artificial means, I can 
only give the history comparatively small attention, as although the 
subject is a very large one, and open to much discussion, I think I 
cannot do better than confine myself to the methods that have been 
used, and are now in use, for the heating of horticultural buildings 
proper. The baths in the ancient Roman villas were, we know, heated 
by means of a circulating hot-water apparatus ; thus even as far back 
as before the Christian era, the same principles were applied by which, 
at the present day, we carry out hot-water heating. 
The first greenhouses that were built, about the year 1700, of which 
I have just spoken, were heated either by hot embers placed in holes in 
the floor and covered with a plate, or by brick flues, mostly the latter ; 
and indeed this latter system has been used, more or less, down to about 
the year 1850. 
The heating of greenhouses by hot-water apparatus was first adopted 
about the commencement of the present century, and most of these old 
apparatus that have come under my notice were constructed on much 
the same principles that are in vogue at the present time—viz, saddle 
form of boiler and large bore pipes, which is really what is now known 
as the low-pressure system, as opposed to the small-bore or high-pressure 
