The History of Greenhouses

摘要

Like the showy marigolds and petunia varieties of today, the Fine Modern Greenhouses of today didn't happen all at once. They, too, are the end result of hundreds of years of painfully slow trial and error. Actually, it was several thousand years! Asfar back as 500 B.C. the Romans were building forcing homes for plants, By 100 A.D. they built walls of translucent mica sheets — and heat ducts were built into the walls. Not much really happened though, until the early 1600's. By 1650, the Dutch werebuilding crude greenhouses with charcoal braziers for heat. By 1720 glass-faced roofs, pitched at a 45 degree angle to the sun, were built in England. Also, much mention here of manure for heating frames — or "tan bark," which fermented, producing heat. And, stoves were used, hence the "Stove plants" in our old garden books.