302 



WINDOW GREEN-HOUSES. 



paved yards, surrounded by houses, which 

 bear and ripen abundant crops ; but I still 

 venture the opinion that paving is not in 

 all cases effectual. 



I will now give you the result of another 

 experiment, which may be of use to some 

 of your readers; but I warn all that it is 

 only the experience of a single year, 



I last spring hauled a quantity of fresh 

 tan from a tan-yard, and put a heavy dress- 

 ing of it on the vine border of my grapery. 

 The remainder, some six or eight wagon 

 loads, was deposited in a heap a few feet 

 from where an old Isabella vine was grow- 

 ing. A few days since, on removing this 

 heap, I found this vine had sent roots up 



into the heap more than a foot from 

 the ground, which had spread their fibres 

 through it in every direction. Some of my 

 neighbors had cautioned me very strongly 

 against using the tan on my vine border 

 till it was thoroughly rotted ; but I never 

 have had so fine grapes in my house as the 

 past season. And since seeing how this 

 heap had become filled with roots, I am 

 strongly inclined to attribute their excel- 

 lence to its use ; and will venture the opi- 

 nion that fresh tan is a good manure for 

 grape-vines, though I advise those who> 

 think differently not to use it. Very truly 

 yours, H. W. S. Cleveland. 



Oatlands, Burlington, N. J. y Nov. 6, 1849. 



WINDOW GREEN-HOUSES- 



[FI..OM BECK'S FLORIST, LONDON.} 



You ask me the particulars of my " win- 

 dow green-house," in which, as I have been 

 sufficiently successful not only to please 

 myself, but to have imitators because of 

 that success, I have great pleasure in tell- 

 ing you — no, not you, but your readers — 

 how I manage matters. I had last season 

 about 900 blossoms on 35 plants, and as I 

 am not aware that the care of them took up 

 time that ought to have been otherwise 

 employed, and was a pleasure all through 

 the year as well as in the blooming season, 

 I really should be glad to see the system 

 more general. I cannot promise that all 

 shall succeed who may try it ; but I think 

 I can show that those who do not may 

 charge themselves with their failure. 



Probably most of your readers have oc- 

 casionally noticed a most flourishing tree, 

 covered with healthy blossoms, in an old 

 broken teapot in some cottage window; 

 and some may have thence inferred the 

 uselessness of care and science in the treat- 

 ment of plants. I do not draw that conclu- 

 sion from the fact. For look at that sickly 

 thing in the next window to it. How much 

 better and healthier the flowers look in the 



one window than the other! And yet the 

 houses are built on the same plan, and 

 stand next to one another ; and therefore 

 the inference I should draw is, that there 

 is a right way and a wrong of growing 

 flowers ; and, further, that a person who 

 uses the right will succeed under great ap- 

 parent disadvantages. And as a closer in- 

 spection always shows the difference to be 

 in the person and not in the place, and that 

 such persons rarely spend much time or 

 pains upon their pets, and yet everything 

 seems to succeed with them, it is plain that 

 those who will follow their example will 

 make their window plants flourish as well 

 as theirs do. And this is so true, that if a 

 person will not make up his mind to act 

 upon the right system when he knows it, I 

 cannot recommend him to keep plants in- 

 doors, many or few, unless for the whole- 

 some discipline of disappointment. 



Now I believe, sir, you will agree with 

 me, that the right system for plants, as for 

 children, is the natural system ; and that 

 nostrums, and secrets, and tricks, are, for 

 the most part, not only pernicious but silly,. 

 As a general rule, and under similar cir- 



