1880.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



295 



Greenhouse and House Gardening. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



The taste for cut- flowers, like the taste for bed- 

 ding plants, has grown to such proportions as to 

 almost overshadow the love of beautiful winter- 

 flowering plants, which in the past made the 

 greenhouse in winter such a love of a place 

 to spend a few hours in. The cut-flower enthu- 

 siasm covers only a score or two of items, some 

 half dozen kinds of roses, Callas, Bouvardias, 

 Heliotrope, Carnations and Mignonette, and the 

 list is near complete. The taste for all does a 

 little for true flower culture. It cannot be that 

 the love of flowers will stop with a "bunch," a 

 tasteful bouquet, or a basket. Some among the 

 admirers of these conventional things will want to 

 move, and we have little doubt that the love of 

 nice collections of well grown winter plants will 

 grow out of mere "cut flower'' love. 



For winter-flowering many things like Carna- 

 tions, Bouvardias, Jasmine, and others, are 

 grown out of doors during summer, and are 

 lifted and potted early in October. 



In taking up things from the ground for pot- 

 ting, care should be taken to have the pots well 

 drained, with pieces of potsherd over the hole. 

 The more rapidly water passes through the soil 

 the better plants will grow. Pots could be made 

 without holes, and the water would all go 

 through the porous sides in time ; but that is too 

 slow a way, so we make a hole to admit of its 

 more rapid escape, and we place the broken pots 

 over the hole to make a vacuum, which assists 

 the object of the hole. In very small pots, or 

 with plants which have strong enough roots to 

 rapidly absorb all the moisture they get, and 

 speedily ask for more, "crocking" is not neces- 

 sary. 



Bulbs for flowering in pots should be planted 

 at once. Four or five inch pots are suitable. 

 One Hyacinth and about three tulips are suffi- 

 cient for each. After potting, plunge the pots over 

 their rims in sand under the greenhouse stage, 

 letting them remain there until the pots have 

 become well filled with roots, before bringing 

 them on to the shelves to force. 



To watch for the first appearance of insects of 

 all kinds, is one of the chief points of immediate 



interest in plant culture. If they once become 

 numerous, it is often better to throw away a 

 plant entirelj' than to doctor it after the old 

 methods. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



HYGIENIC AND THERAPEUTIC RELA- 

 TIONS OF HOUSE-PLANTS. 



Read before the Alumni of the Auxiliary Department of Medi- 

 cine, University of Pennsylvania, February 6, 1880. 



BY DR. J. M. ANDERS, PHILA. 



The old question of the eff'ects of living plants 

 on the air of houses is one of considerable in- 

 terest. The family doctor is ofttimes confronted 

 with the query, " How do plants in rooms affect 

 the health of the inmates?" Formerly, it was 

 the universal opinion that they were injurious to 

 health, particularly in the sleeping-room and 

 sick-chamber. Unfortunately, this still continues 

 to be a popular impression. To review the 

 various views on this topic down to the present 

 would be foreign to the scope of this article and 

 quite out of place. The discussion will neces- 

 sarily be confined to the present state of our 

 knowledge concerning the subject, and especially 

 such of its bearings as are interesting from a 

 medical point of view. 



Three of the chief functions in plant life are 

 the absorption of carbonic acid, the exhalation 

 of oxygen, and the generation of ozone. Now, 

 it has been conclusively shown* that variations 

 in the amount of these gases from the presence 

 of any number of plants have no appreciable 

 effect on the air of an apartment, the absorption 

 and exhalation of these substances being carried 

 on too slowly either to improve or to vitiate the 

 air. 



There is, however, yet another process in 

 plants, which in this connection is of far greater 

 importance, viz., that of transpiration. By this 

 term is meant the exhalation of moisture by the 

 leaves. About this function very little was 

 known until recently. Careful investigations of 

 the subject have been made by the writer, to 

 which brief reference can only be made here, for 

 they have formed the basis of a paper else- 



» Pettenkofer, Pop. Science Montbly for February, 1878. 



