THE BELGIAN WINDOW-GARDEN. 



429 



wished for. Open the doors, and the gar- 

 den forms part of the room ; close them, 

 and the apartment is relieved from the pre- 

 sence of the plants. But, what is of much 

 more importance, in the latter case the 

 plants are themselves completely relieved 

 from the fatal atmosphere of the apartment, 

 — not fatal, indeed, if inhaled for a few 

 hours at a time, but certainly destructive if 

 endured for long. 



What, it may be asked, is there in the 

 air of a sitting-room which plants are thus 

 unable to endure? Can anything be purer 

 than the atmosphere of an English draw- 

 ing-room? Perhaps not; but it is this pu- 

 rity which in part inflicts the injury. Plants 

 would thrive better if it were otherwise, 

 but it is more especially its dryness. Let 

 any one measure the moisture of a sitting- 

 room and the open air, and he will see how 

 great a difference prevails. We have this 

 moment tested it by Simmons's hygrome- 

 ter ; in the open air this instrument indi- 

 cates 40°, in a sitiing-room 60"^. 



When plants are kept iij a dry atmos- 

 phere, they rapidly lose their water of ve- 

 getation ; the sides of their pots are robbed 

 at the same time ; and it is impossible for 

 plants to suck out of soil thus partially dried 

 the moisture demanded for the sustenance 

 of tlieir exhausted foliage. Such a state 

 of things is inseparable from a sitting- 

 room. To render the latter congenial to 

 plants it would be uninhabitable by our- 

 selves. The extent to which plants are 

 injured in a common sitting-room is stri- 

 kingly illustrated by the condition of cut 

 flowers. Let two clusters of fresh gathered 

 flowers be introduced into a sitting-room ; 

 place the one in the mouth of a narrow 

 necked jar of water, and arrange the other 

 upon such a shallow pan of water as a deep 

 dish will furnish. It will be found that the 

 latter will be perfectly fresh days after the 

 former are faded. The reason is that in 

 the narrow necked jar the flowers have no 

 access to water except through the ends of 

 their shoots, and are surrounded by a very 

 dry air ; while in the flat dish they are able 

 to absorb abundant water, because a large 

 part of their surface is in contact with it, 

 and are moreover surrounded by air inces- 

 santly moistened by the vapor that continu- 

 ally rises from the dish. 



Of this we may be sure, that darkness, 

 dust, heat, want of ventilation, and all the 

 other calamities to which plants in sitting- 

 rooms are subject, are as nothing compared 

 with the inevitable dryness of the air ; 

 which indeed acts injuriously, not merely 

 by exhausting plants of their water of ve- 

 getation, but by lowering the temperature 

 of the pots in which they are grown, in 

 consequence of the evaporation con.-itantly 

 taking place there. 



What makes the evil greater is, that the 

 plants which are purchased for sitting-rooms 

 are invariably brought into high condition 

 by being grown in a damp atmosphere. 

 They are transferred from the hands of 

 skilful gardeners, armed with the most 

 perfectly constructed forcing-houses, into 

 the care of inexperienced amateurs, whose 

 means of maintaining a plant in health are 

 something considerably less than nothing. 



A case will illustrate this : A Rose bush 

 is bought in the market, fresh and trim, 

 with one or two flowers open, others in 

 bud, more still younger, and many but just 

 peeping out. From such a specimen no- 

 thing, it would seem, can result but a long 

 .succession of beauty. But this charming 

 thing, so fresh and promising, was, perhaps, 

 a few hours before, the inhabitant of a damp 

 green-house or pit, where its leaves were 

 formed in shade, and their surface softened 

 by a daily bath of artificial dew. It is sud- 

 denly conveyed to a sitting-room ; its leaves 

 shrivel up under the withering influence of 

 its new habitation ; the fountains of life 

 become dried; the young flowers, starved 

 by want of their accustomed food, drop off, 

 the leaves follow them; the green-fly or 

 red spider attacks the suffering remains, 

 and a week or two are sufilcient to v/itness 

 the destruction of all the buyer's hopes. 



We appeal to everybody's experience for 

 our proof that this is an ordinary case. 

 But a Belgian window-garden removes the 

 difficulty; in such a place a plant is kept 

 in precisely the circumstances most condu- 

 cive to its health ; light and moisture fos- 

 ter the young shoots, and the softened air 

 provides a due supply of all that is indis- 

 pensable to vigor. 



To those who propose to engage in this 

 kind of amusement we would add a very few 

 words of empirical advice. L Always use 



