THE BELGIAN WINDOW-GARDEN. 



427 



seems that the convention will not be able 

 to make out a large list, as suitable for 

 general cultivation, in our widely extended 

 country. The same variety of fruit may 

 suit the same degree of latitude to any dis- 

 tance westward ; but the difference of tem- 

 perature, in going north or south, may have 

 an injurious influence, and render it worth- 

 less. And yet, it would be hardly right for 

 the convention to reject a variety that was 

 good at one extreme, merely because it was 

 not so at the other. I understand the de- 

 sign of the convention to be national in its 

 character. Hence, it may ultimately be 

 proper for it to recommend all good fruits, 

 and designate the section of country where 

 they are so. To recommend only those 



that are proper for general cuhivation, would 

 be to leave out many valuable varieties, in 

 particular localities, and make the list a 

 local one ; and then to include all others in 

 a rejected list, would be equally unjust. 

 Yardley Taylor. 



Mr. Taylor's views will be responded 

 to by every judicious reader. If the Stale 

 Fndt Committees will prepare full returns 

 to all the queries for information in the cir- 

 cular of the General Fruit Committee, pub- 

 lished last month, we think the Congress 

 of Fruit-growers, at its next meeting, will 

 be able to present a mass of information, 

 regarding the value of varieties, in various 

 parts of the Union, such as has never yet 

 been laid before the public. Ed. 



TKS BELGIAN WINDOW GARDEN. 

 BY DR. LINDLEY. 



Those who are debarred from the enjoy- 

 ment of a Garden by sickness, residence, 

 or fortune, should take a leaf out of the 

 book of the French and Belgian ladies, who 

 succeed, by means of double-glazed win- 

 dows and other contrivances, in providing 

 themselves with an ample supply of fresh 

 flowers at all seasons of the year. With 

 us, the first object of the dwellers in towns 

 is to buy plants, the next is to provide for 

 them. Elsewhere it is thought more ad- 

 vantageous in the first instance to secure 

 the means of keeping a plant in health, and 

 that being accomplished, to obtain it. We 

 will not be so uncivil as to reproach our 

 fair countrywomen with herein indulging 

 in that sort of caprice which is vulgarly 

 called putting a cart before a horse ; but 

 we shall confine ourselves to an explana- 

 tion of the manner in which other persons 

 proceed, leaving all who are concerned to 

 form their own judgment in the matter. 



"In Belgium," says M. Victor Paquet, 

 " wherever you go, you see spaces between 

 double-sashed windows filled in the win- 

 ter time with the most charming flowers. 



Elsewhere the balconies are turned into 

 green-houses, and you may find on the fifth 

 or sixth floor a miniature green-house gay 

 with the brightest flowers and the greenest 

 foliage. In Paris there are many such con- 

 trivances, especially two on the fourth floor 

 of a house in the Boulevard de la Made- 

 leine, at the corner of the Rue Caumartin. 

 Here are to be found the rarest plants. 

 Camellias grow^ in the open ground. Pas- 

 sionflowers cling to the columns ; the creep- 

 ing fig forms a carpet upon the walls, and 

 water-plants start up from tiny basins curi- 

 ously contrived in the solid brickwork. By 

 turning a screw a stream of limpid water 

 ^ows down a rock, from whose crevices 

 start up Ferns and Lycopods and such 

 things. And what is it that adjoins this 

 little paradise but a bed-room ! The first 

 beams of the morning sun throw upon the 

 bed of the owner the shadows of Palm- 

 leaves and Bananas, or of garlands of Pas- 

 sionflowers." 



This sort of garden, though on the fourth 

 floor, is, however, rather too ambitious for 

 everybody's taste, and therefore we agree 



