Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

REMARKS Ellivens

ON

THE CONSTRUCTION

OF

HOTHOUSES,

POINTING OUT

THE MOST ADVANTAGEOUS FORMS, MATERIALS, AND CONTRIVANCES TO BE USED IN THEIR CONSTRUCTION;

ALSO

A REVIEW

OF THE VARIOUS METHODS OF BUILDING THEM IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES AS WELL AS IN ENGLAND:

With Ten Plates, from Etchings on Stone.

By J. C. LOUDON, F.L.S.

MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL SOCIETY, MOSCOW; OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, BERLIN;
AND OF THE POTSDAM ROYAL ECONOMICAL SOCIETY, ETC. ETC.

пр

"The Public have still much to learn on the subject of Hothouses."

SIR JOSEPH BANKS on the Forcing Houses of the Romans.

London:

PRINTED FOR J. TAYLOR, AT THE ARCHITECTURAL LIBRARY,
No. 59, HIGH HOLBORN,

BY RICHARD AND ARTHUR TAYLOR, SHOE-LANE.

der the direction of the younger Clusius and of the celebrated Boerhaave1.

BOERHAAVE in designing these houses seems to have been the first to establish a principle for determining the slope of glass, which he develops in his System of Chemistry, and which are designated in the Amanitates Academica3, and in the Encyclopédie Méthodique+, "the laws of Boerhaave." Illustrating the laws of light in its passage through glass, he observes, that gardeners often feel the bad effects of placing the upright sashes of conservatories in such a position as that the sun's rays do not pass through them perpendicularly, and consequently that much of the upper part of the house is deprived of his influence. He recommends erecting the glass windows to an angle of 14 deg. 30 min. in those countries where the elevation of the pole is 524 deg. for reasons easily deduced from astronomy and dialling".

1 See Index Plantarum, &c. and also the preface to Index alter Plantarum quæ in Horto Academico Lugduno-Batavo aluntur conscr. ab H. Boerhaave 1720. The following are

the houses alluded to:

Hortus adonidis cum supposito caldario primus.

Hortus adonidis alter magno tepidario hypogeo instructus.

Horti adonidis minores fenestris vitreis et ligneis defensi.

Hortus adonidis maximus fornace calescens.

Pergula hybernaculum præbens variis fornacibus instructum.

Hybernaculum priore calidius.

In the two first of these houses the fire was lighted in a vault; the third had no fire, and the three last were heated by upright German stoves without horizontal flues. This celebrated garden is still visited by the curious. In 1814 it was rather in a state of decay, probably from want of funds, though under the direction of an intelligent old Scotch gardener. It may be necessary to remark, for those who are unaccustomed to botanical latin, that Garden of Adonis is a generic term for every description of glass case for preserving or cultivating plants. See a technical arrangement of horticulture in Amœnitates Academicæ, tom. iv. p. 211. • Elementa Chemiæ, Lugd. Bat. 1732, tom. i. p. 213.

9 Tom. i. Descriptio Horti Upsaliensis.

4

* Volume d'Aratoire et du Jardinage, art. "Serre."

5 "Oportet hæc hybernacula, directe meridiei opposita, instruere fenestris e vitro erectis ad angulum 14 gr. 30' usque ad pavimentum, iisque pellucidis, si fieri potest. Postea autem lacunar debet ita fieri, ut a linea horizontali, ducta ab altitudine luminum, a fenestris parietem

We find LINNEUS in 1745 approving of the garden of Leyden in the arrangement of that at Upsal', and stating in his description of the Caldarium, or dry stove, which he erected there in 1740, the advantages of the particular slope which he had fixed on for the glass roof?; no doubt from consulting the laws of Boerhaave, of whose slope for an orangery in latitude 524 he gives a diagram in a plate.

ADANSON is the next Continental author of importance who has touched on this subject. In his " Familles des Plantes" published in 1763, he has given the first systematic treatise on the theory and practice of constructing hothouses, that probably ever was published. Botanic stoves and greenhouses were the description he had chiefly in view, and these he says ought to be so contrived as to have most sun when the plants are in them. He recommends the use of front glass only; placed upright, or at such an angle as that the sun should be perpendicular to it in November, December, January, and Fe bruary. The perpendicularity of the glass, he says, protects from the cold occasioned by falling dews. He recommends iron astragals and Bohemian glass in order to obtain the most light possible. "Sloping sashes,” he adds, “whether convex or a part of a circle, and of which they cover each part with straw mats as the sun leaves it, or simply inclined so as the rays of the sun may be perpendicular to them in the beginning of March, are only good for that month and for April.

"In general,” he concludes, "it will be more advantageous to in

posteriorem versus, deorsum declinet angulo par iter 20 gr. 30' in regionibus ubi elevatio poli est 52. Ratio ex astronomicis et gnomonicis, facilis eruenda hic brevitatis gratia omittitur.” -Elementa Chemia, Lugd. Bat. 1732.

'Amanitates, tom. i. p. 44.

2 “ Latus australe Caldarii sola fenestrarum junctura constat hunc in modum inclinatis quem declarat delineatio, in fine hujus opusculi sita, quemque hoc majore adnotatione dignum existimavi, quod Caldarium hac inclinatione fenestrarum, sole radios evibrante, duntaxat ab illo, tan tum caloris adquirit, gradum ut thermometrum ad gradus 30 (that of Celsius is here used) sæpe adscendat, quamvis non facile 20 a 25 admittitur superare gradum hortulani vigilantia ; nec infra 15 gr. hyeme facile descendere, antequam focus defectum solis suppleat."-Tom..i.. p. 39.

cline the floor of hothouses to the sun's rays in February, which is the time when the plants of the torrid zone, shut up during five months, suffer the most, than to incline the glass frames."

Notwithstanding his own opinion, however, he gives rules, tables, and diagrams, for constructing hothouses to suit every possible situation, from the pole to the equator. In some of these the sloping glass forms the hypothenuse of a triangle; in others part of a trapezium, a segment of a circle, or part of a polygon'. The ground plan also varies from a segment of a circle to a parallelogram.

NICHOLAS FACIO DE DOUILLIER 2 is the first writer who appears to have treated the subject of the solar influence in ripening fruits in this country. This author, who was tutor to the Marquis of Tavistock, and a fellow of the Royal Society, published his treatise in 1699: he does not however enter on the subject of hothouses directly, though the greater part of what he states respecting the comparative advantages of perpendicular and sloping walls will equally apply to sloping or perpendicular glass roofs. It appears that this work was at the time it was published rejected by practical men, but it is replete with ingenuity and mathematical demonstration; and, with the faci

1 “Les meilleurs sont ceux qui ont le moins d'inclinaison; et ceux qui sont tout droits sont préférables, parce k'ils presentent moins de surface au froid dans le tems ou il u plus de force que le soleil, comme en Novembre, Décembre, Janvier, et Février. C'est pour cela que les chassis inclinés, à la façon Hollandoise soit convexes en portion de sfère et dont on recouvre chake partie avec des paillassons à mesure que le soleil les abandone, soit construits en ligne droite, et inclinés, ainsi que le mur sur lekel sont couchés les arbrisseaux à fruits, tels que la vigne, la pêche, &c. qu'on veut avancer, de maniere qu'ils soient perpendiculaires aux raions du soleil au commencement de Mars, ne sont bons que pour ce mois et celui d'Avril, ou le soleil commence à avoir plus de force que les froids des nuits qui diminuent en s'élevant insensiblement au-dessus de la congélation; encore risk t'on en Avril de voir les plantes brûlées en un moment, ou par le moindre coup de soleil lorsk'on ne les ouvre pas, ou par les froids de 7 à 8 deg. lorsk'on les ouvre trop tôt." See the whole article entitled Manière de conserver vivantes dans des serres les plantes des climats les plus chaudes, tom. i. p. 132.

• Fruit Walls improved by inclining them to the Horizon; or A Way to build Walls for Fruit Trees, whereby they may receive more Sunshine and Heat than ordinary. By a Member of the Royal Society, London, 1699.

« НазадПродовжити »