“Nearness to market is the most important feature in a greenhouse.  In large cities, manure, which is the chief fertilizer, can be had in most cases for the hauling.  The short haul is an important item, and, most important of all, the gardener who is near the market can take advantage of high prices, if the grower is near enough to the city to make two or three trips; in such a fluctuating market as New York, it is to his advantage.”

Some kind of a greenhouse is necessary, but one large enough to produce a living would cost a very large sum.  Vegetable raising under glass has been made profitable in special localities where nearly the whole community gives its time to building up the industry, but complete success can be attained only by having absolute control of all the conditions entering into production, and giving assiduous and undivided attention to detail.

Leonard Barron, in the Garden Magazine, says:  “The best type of greenhouse for all-round purposes is unquestionably what is known as the even span—­that is, a house in which the roof is in the form of an inverted V, so as to be exposed as much as possible to sunlight, and having the ridge-pole in the center.  All other types of houses are modifications from the simplest form, and are designed in some way or other to fit some special requirements.  These requirements may be:  the cultural necessities for some particular crop; a desire to have the atmospheric conditions inside more or less abnormal at given seasons (as in a forcing house); or an adaptation to some peculiarity of the situation, as when a greenhouse is built as an adjunct to other buildings.”

“It is plain common sense that the ideal greenhouse is one in which the light is most nearly that which exists outside, and in which the heat is as evenly distributed.  It is practical experience that a structure with as few angles and turns m it as possible and with a minimum of woodwork in its superstructure, best answers these conditions....  Greenhouse building has developed into a special industry, and the modern American greenhouse is the highest type of construction.  It is built with as careful calculation to its situation and its requirements as is the country dwellinghouse.  Such a thing naturally is not cheap.”

“The low-priced ‘cheap greenhouse’ is a makeshift of some sort.  Perhaps its roof is constructed of hotbed sash, a perfectly feasible method of construction, which for ordinary, commonplace gardening will answer admirably.  Or, its foundation is merely the plain earth.  Such a building does admirably in the summer time, and even in the late spring and early autumn; but woe betide the enthusiastic amateur in winter, who, being possessed of one of these light greenhouse structures, has indulged in a few costly, exotic plants.  They will be frozen, to a certainty!  It is economy to pay a fair price in the beginning to secure a properly built greenhouse that will withstand the trials of winter.”