Greenhouse Construction and Heating - Containing Full Descriptions of the Various Kinds of Greenhouses, Stove Houses, Forcing Houses, Pits and Frames, With Directions for Their Construction #270495

In large and smoky towns, plants growing in a greenhouse are protected, to a great extent, by the glass roof, from the constantly falling particles of soot, dust, etc., that would otherwise be deposited on them, and are consequently both cleaner and healthier than those exposed to the open air. Greenhouses are generally supposed to be very costly structures, and so they frequently are, though a great deal depends upon the way in which one goes to work. Elaborate constructions, in which heavy or fancifully wrought wood or iron w'ork, coloured glass, powerful and intricate heating apparatus, and everything of the very best materials and workmanship are employed, are naturally and unavoidably expensive. So also are too frequently those erected by a professional horticultural builder, especially where a fixed or contract price is not agreed upon previously. For, although these men know exactly the right way to go to work (or ought to do so), it should be remembered that they have to employ skilled and reliable workmen, who have to be well paid, and to find travelling and other expenses as well, while lastly they must have a good margin of profit themselves, or they could not live. In fact, it is not so much the actual materials that cost the money so much as the labour, which is always a very heavy item, particularly when that of a skilled description has to be employed.