Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 11.7
Lithograph by Ackerman of The Crystal Palace in London; view is from the northwest.
(De Maré
1972
)
flower, shipping the cut stems to the seventeenth century royal courts of Germany,
France, and Great Britain (Nelson
2003
).
The inventions of embedding glass in putty for greenhouse roof and walls was
developed by company of Lord and Burnham in 1840 and casting plate glass in 1848
allowed for larger greenhouses to be built for exhibitions and commercial flower
production. For instance, in 1851, The Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park, Lon-
don, England with an exterior surface area of 71,721 m
2
of glass (Fig.
11.7
; de Maré
1972
). Lord and Burham and other companies subsequently pioneered the building
of numerous types of greenhouse structures for commercial and home production of
flowers, fruits and vegetables (Figs.
11.8
and
11.9
; Lord & Burnham Co.
n.d.
; The
Weathered Company
1908
).
Modern-day greenhouses (Fig.
11.10
), used primarily for flower production
throughout the world, are large expanses of structures that use sheet glass, flexible
polyethylene, and rigid fibreglass, polycarbonate, or exolite as glazing materials
(Nelson
2003
). The three top greenhouse producers are The USA, Japan and The
Netherlands, producing as much as 46 % of the global floriculture products (Nelson
2003
). Typical crops grown in these structures include a range of cut flowers, cut
foliage, potted flowering and foliage plants, bedding plants, and herbaceous peren-
nials. Due to the advent of air transport, the evolution of flower production changed
from local growers who produced all crops for local sales, to areas of global special-
ization. Specific field cut flowers are still produced in the warmer areas of the globe
such as California or Florida, USA, and include crops such as stock (
Matthiola
incana)
, baby's breath (
Gypsophila paniculata),
statice (
Limonium sinuatum)
and
