490 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t December 25, 1866. 



confine the air-giving to the highest part of the roof, and to 

 be more particular about giving a little air early than to give 

 much, lu a dry, parched, keen, frosty air out of doors it will 

 be safer to allow the heat to rise gradually with the sun 10 

 more than usual, with a little air previously given, and per- 

 haps sprinkling the paths, not slushing them, than to admit as 

 much air as would keep the temperature down to the general 

 standard. The additional sun heat will do no harm if it raise 

 the temperature of the house gradually, and if everything like 

 scorching and scalding has been avoided by giving a little air 

 early. Whenever a bright day is anticipated the heatiug 

 medium should be allowed to cool pretty well down before the 

 sun is powerful in the house, so as not to have sun heat and 

 (ire heat exerting their forces together. Then, again, in hot- 

 houses, it would often be better in every way to allow the tem- 

 perature of the house to fall from 5 to 10° lower than usual, 

 but within the point of safety, for short periods, than to keep 

 a house at the same temperature when the air outside was 

 20° above the freezing-point as when it was 20° below it. 

 More plants are thus injured by excessive fire heat than 

 by low temperatures for short periods. AYhen a high tempe- 

 rature is thus maintained great attention must be paid to at- 

 mospheric moisture ; but this is of much less importance in a 

 house of from 55° to 60" than it would be in one of from 65° to 

 75°. In sunny frosty weather the fires should be so regulated 

 as to begin to exert an influence in the house just as the sun 

 heat is gradually leaving it, and no great fires should be put on 

 in the morning before a good estimate can be formed of what 

 the day is likely to be. 



Window Gardening. — When spare rooms with a fair amount i 

 of light are set apart for bedding plants, and succession plants 

 for the windows of the living-rooms, the plants are less liable to , 

 damp off than when growing in cold frames and pits, and | 

 much may be done in moving them in turns close to the 

 light, and taking care that at this season they have not only 

 all the direct, but all the refracted and reflected light possible. 

 Plants in living-rooms cannot be too near the glass in ordinary 

 mild weather, and the chief care they require will be to keep 

 them clean, and to neutralise the dry air of the room by fre- i 

 quently sprinkling the stems and foliage with a sponge or 

 hair-brush. We have no doubt that the time is at hand when | 

 the lovers of flowers in towns will have double windows, and a 

 space of 2 or 8 feat between them in which to grow some of 

 their pets, so as to be protected alike from the varying outside 

 temperature and the dry air and dust from the 'living-room. 

 The little greenhouse might have an iron bottom, and a gas j 

 jet, or a drawer for hot water beneath when wanted. 



In towrfs where the houses are packed thickly together, ad- 

 ditional care will be required, as, besides the common dust from 

 rooms and from the outside streets, there are the noxious 

 gases from burning gas, those that escape along with the coal 

 smoke from so many chimneys, and the deposition of sul- 

 phurous carbonaceous matter in the form of soot, which clogs 

 up the pores of the plants, and prevents anything like a healthy 

 perspiration or respiration. Plants cannot remain healthy 

 with such incrustations on their leaves. When the plants are 

 of some age, it is less injurious when the stems and trunks are 

 so encrusted, and hence deciduous trees thrive very fairly in 

 towns where evergreens become worse instead of better every 

 year. The reason of this is, that the buds of deciduous trees 

 do not break into their summer livery until the worst of the 

 coal and smoke season is past. Hence the poor woman in her 

 garret or back-kitchen window in a crowded city, will manage a 

 Fuchsia in her broken teapot better and more easily than she 

 could a florist's Pelargonium, because the Fuchsia will be al- 

 most leafless in the dark winter months. On the same principle 

 a stout old plant of a scarlet Pelargonium, or a plant of the old 

 favourite Hydrangea, will be more easily managed than such a 

 Pelargonium as mentioned above, or even a small Camellia, 

 because though the leaves of the first two fade in winter con- 

 siderably, yet if the plants be kept dry and at rest in the 

 darkestmonths.it will not interfere with their blooming if they 

 be set gently growing after the darkest days are past ; but the 

 chief secret for keeping window plants healthy in towns is a 

 continuous use of the sponge and the syringe, or dustings of 

 water from a clean hair-brush, to keep the foliage clean and 

 fresh. The next important consideration as respects the safety 

 of the plants is keeping them from frost, and that is best done 

 by setting them in frosty nights in the middle of the room, or 

 in a corner as far as possible from the window and the door- 

 way, and in very severe weather placing a cloth over them 

 at night. Oh the whole, the plants are apt to suffer more 



from want of cleaning the foliage than from excess of cold or 

 heat. 



One other and very important point is as much light as 

 possible in winter and spring for growing plants in windows. 

 Much cannot be done in this direction, but still something may 

 be done to make the most of what heat a clean window will 

 give ; and we are reminded of this by having had an inquiry 

 as to whether a common window or a bow window would be the 

 better for plants. Of course there can be no comparison of the 

 amount of light ; the bow window will throw in much more 

 light than a common window — first, because the whole window 

 stands out beyond the walls of the house ; £nd secondly, be- 

 cause light comes streaming from three directions instead of 

 one. Our common windows do not give so much light (being 

 generally placed for architectural effect C or 8 inches inside of 

 the wall I, as they would do if placed almost flush with the out- 

 side wall, though that would give them an unfinished bare look 

 when viewed from the outside. Even with windows placed in 

 the usual way much may be done by keeping them clean, and 

 the sides of the window or the walls of the opening as white- 

 coloured as possible, and also having the walls inside of a light 

 colour, so as to reflect the light. This brings us to what the 

 inquiry about the bow window reminded us of, and which we 

 had forgotten to mention. Some years ago a gentleman who 

 had a small room at the top of his staircase, with a large 

 window reaching almost to the ground, wished to turn it into 

 a reading-room, and to grow there during the season some 

 nice plants in baskets and vases. The plants did not thrive 

 very well at any time, but they became especially dingy and 

 sickly in winter. Want of light was the evil. The plants 

 might almost as well have stood in a cellar. The bricks outside, 

 up the sides of the window, over its top, and at its sill, were 

 nearly green with slime and moss. The window itself had 

 been daubed of a bluish colour, and the walls of the room were 

 of a greenish hue, to suggest alike cheerfulness, and, we fear, 

 fumes of arsenic when hot. All round the windows outside 

 was made as white as fresh lime would make it, the glass was 

 thoroughly cleaned, a thin white muslin blind was used in 

 summer, and the walls of the room were made of a whitish 

 stone colour, lest a pure white should be too distressing to the 

 eyes, and from that time the plants throve as well as could be 

 expected. The proprietor said, " Why, the room looks now as 

 if it were all glass and light ;" and the change from having 

 I so much reflected light was remarkable. We have understood 

 I that the walls and ceiling are whitened every autumn. Need 

 we say that in all cases where there is little room and little 

 light, increasing light in this manner will not only be good 

 for the plants, but good for those who grow- them ? Excess of 

 light, and heat with it in summer, is easily guarded against. 



We should be as glad if this hint were more generally acted 

 on, as we were pleased some time ago in a warm summer to 

 find a number of workshops open to the roof, with the slates 

 and tiles of the roof whitened outside with lime or chalk. On 

 asking a workman the reason for such a practice, he replied, 

 " Some of my mates read The Cottage Gaudeneii, and from 

 that they learned that the white roof would keep the shops 

 cooler in this warm weather, and if it remained it would make 

 us warmer in winter. It does keep us cool and comfortable 

 now." The light colour outside reflected the heat and J ight. and 

 prevented the slates absorbing the heat and making the space 

 below like a furnace. The same white colour would greatly 

 lessen the radiation of heat from the slates in winter, and, there- 

 fore, the place would be warmer. The light colour of the walls 

 of a room reflects the light, and, therefore, increases the light 

 in the confined space. 



Mice must be carefully trapped and poisoned, or they will 

 soon destroy the finest collections of Pinks and Carnations. 

 Even the common mouse or barn mouse will do this, but the 

 grass mouse is especially to be dreaded. If the plants are kept 

 in a frame or pit, one of the most effectual remedies is to run a 

 little tar outside at the ground line, and if a little oil be mixed 

 with the tar, the latter will keep longer in a moist condition. 

 In many places it is becoming a hard matter to keep mice from 

 Crocuses, Tulips, and other roots in the ground. In growing 

 some of these in pots last season, we were obliged to cover the 

 pots with other pots of the same size, with a piece of brick or 

 heavy tile over the hole in the upper pot. Even with such 

 care there were not wanting cases in which mice had massed 

 their forces, and with united efforts done what no single mouse 

 could have effected — moved the covering placed over the hole 

 of the upper pot, and left but relics of the bulbs and tubers in 

 the pots.— K. F. 



