Down the Rabbit Hole with Mr. Google

We awoke to more snow and bad roads. My day rapidly became limited to taking/letting dogs in and out . . . Bob adores the snow and went off leash with John down to the chicken house  and down to the lower place.

But I'm in a hurry to get back to my writing and researching -- 

good old Mr. Google has so many answers.

A remark by Mario on Facebook, in response to my post about Civil War photographers, about the discarded glass plate negatives  being used to make greenhouses gave me an idea for a scene set some years after the war so off I went in search of more information.

 .

This site  http://civilwartalk.com/threads/what-happen-to-photo-negative-plates.76432/

said the following:

" Each photo left a negative plate, I mean a plate of glass like 8in x 10in. The question is what happen to these photo negative glass plates? 

If you go to a greenhouse built in the years following the civil war to 1900, you will find them. They were used as the glass the made up the greenhouse. The sun has faded most of the images away but if you go in the dark corners of these greenhouse, you will still see images on them from the civil war...."

But then some questions were raised as to whether this is factual. Evidently many of these glass negatives survive in collections.

Wikipedia had more on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathew_Brady

Evidently nothing is proven.  But I'm writing fiction and it's such a lovely image, I'll probably use it -- perhaps not a whole green house, maybe just a bay window for house plants. And the wife of the disgraced Colonel will tend her indoor garden under the fading gaze of  Confederate and Union soldiers. . .

But what house plans would she tend? Mr. Google to the rescue!

 ttp://www.weekendgardener.net/indoor-house-plants/victorian-era-plants.htm

Ferns, evidently, abutilon, citrus, palms, and aspidistra would have been popular.

And I learn that in the Victorian era, "houseplants became a moral issue. . . preachers and writers insisted that the beauty of nature could effectively lead people toward moral goodness. Plants provided the easy path toward salvation."

Ooh, I think I see how to  use this . . .  thanks, Mr. Google!