WINDOW GARDENING. 7 



Flowers, plants too, often supply the place of children in bereaved homes ; 

 for their soul-refreshing, heart-inspiring, and eye-brightening influences, are 

 joys to wean the thoughts from pain or sorrow. 



Some mother perhaps cherishes fondly in her home, a few beautiful Fuchsias 

 placed on a stand upon the window sill. She never tires of looking upon their 

 graceful shapes, or the brightly colored jewel blossoms drooping downwards, 

 for they remind her of the delight they once gave her little child before it went to its 

 angel home. The value to her of these treasures, with their brilliant colors and 

 snowy waxen petals, rose-colored or purple corollas, cannot be measured with 

 the ordinary expression of language. 



Among the most gratifying signs of floral taste, is the evidence of their intro- 

 duction into school rooms. The teacher is perhaps fond of them and knows 

 their influence. Their very delicacy, forbidding rough handling, serves to impose 

 a wholesome restraint upon the children ; if ever they are tired with their study, 

 a few glances at the windowsill, and its pots of bloom, wreathes their faces with 

 genial smiles, and they go to work again with willing hearts and refreshed 

 thoughts. The curiosity of children, too, is proverbial, and many a girl learns more 

 of nature from the living specimens before her, than from the dry details of her 

 book of botany. 



Not less important can we consider flowers and plants, as the best and most 

 practical educators o{ healthy sentiment. They are always suggestive of purity 

 and refinement. Nothing is so conducive to cheerfulness, or creates efforts to 

 make home attractive, like their presence in the household. Constant associa- 

 tions with such objects of floral beauty, fits people to rank high as useful mem- 

 bers of society. A floral writer has already expressed these sentiments in a 

 most charming manner : 



" They are a spring of sunshine, a constant pleasure. We would have flowers 

 in every home, for their sunny light, for their cheerful teachings, for their insen- 

 sibly ennobling influence." 



As an amusement for the invalid, Window Gardening through the form of plant 

 cases, is very appropriate. We call to mind an instance of one compelled in 

 consequence of a bodily infirmity, to take up a residence in the city. 



He had enjoyed for a longtime in the country the pleasures of the green-house, 

 and endeavored whilst in the city to replace it once more. A small but inexpen- 

 sive three light green-house was erected in the back yard, open, airy. There 

 he gratified his taste for floricultural subjects by gathering together an interesting 

 collection of valuable ferns and orchids. In an upper room was arranged a capa- 

 cious fern case, and there the invalid would spend many days during the win- 

 ter recumbent upon the sofa dilating upon the pleasures of being able to watch 

 the growth of a vigorous intertwining mass of curious forms of foreign ferns, many 

 of them productions from distant portions of the globe. New Zealand, India, 

 Mexico, Japan. 



In our country homes, how common to see the plant stand before the window 

 with its dozen or so pots of Geraniums, Primroses, Azaleas, &c., while an inva 



