The Orchard House Eighth Edition PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... SPAN-ROOFED ORCHARD-HOUSE, 100 feet long, 24 feet wide, 6 feet high to eaves, 12 feet to ridge. The cost of erecting this house, constructed as shown on sketch, each post standing in an iron socket, including fixing, painting, glazing with 21-oz. glass, expenses to men, and carriage to any railway station within 50 miles of London, will amount to 1961. ORCHARD-HOUSES AS SANATORIUMS. (From the Quarterly Review for October 1859.) 'Structures like these are as much for ornament and pleasure as for the cultivation of fruit. The dry air of a spacious orchard-house is most agreeable in the autumn, winter, and spring months for invalids. An hour's sunshine sends the air up to 60. Early spring and winter-blossoming shrubs may be introduced, but not evergreens; for to keep the latter in health they must be liberally watered, and this destroys the elasticity and dryness of the air, which makes it so agreeable to breathe. Some plants of Chimonanthus fragrans, in large pots, will give their sweet flowers in January. Jcrnnvnum nudijlorum and the Forsythias, although quite leafless when in bloom, have a gay appearance. Banksian roses, Mezereons, the early Dutch honeysuckle, the different varieties of Magnolia conspicua, the Moutan pseonies, and many other plants, may be grown in pots, and will bloom freely from January to April, with only a small quantity of water. 'In such dry and sunny counties as Surrey and Hampshire, orchard-house sanatoriums will one day be formed, and a fine dry air will be secured, more healthy and grateful than can be found in Continental Europe--the air of Nice without its cutting winds.' Since the above was written, I have annually been struck with its truth--so pure and health-giving is the dry air of large orchard-houses....