HOUSE PLANTS. 497 



Another reason, an<l I think it a pretty good one, why I place the 

 Beg'onias at the head of any list of house plants, is because they are 

 most easily g-rown, and may be grown to greatest perfection in 

 the living-room, because they are plants that are satisfied with a 

 very limited amount of sun and light, and then they are always 

 clean and free from insects. You do not have to wash, spray or 

 fumigate. They are plants that love a light, rich and porous soil 

 and plentj- of pot room, and like to be re-potted frequently in their 

 growing period. 



The proper way to place them, as well as many other plants in the 

 room, is near a window on a low table, the top of which is covered 

 with a shallow pan of zinc or galvanized iron, about two to three 

 inches deep. This pan to be always supplied with water, in which 

 place something to place the plants upon so as to just raise the pot 

 above the water. I know of nothing that is better for the purpose 

 than pieces of common brick. It is wonderful what a difference 

 this makes to the plant bj' supplying the surrounding atmos- 

 phere with a little moisture. I have an example of that in a little 

 plant of Pilea that has stood in a small two inch pot on a standard 

 raised about a foot above the water in an aquarium in my ofBce for 

 eight months, in quite a hot and sunny position too, and verj' seldom 

 getting a drop of water in the soil, not oftener than once a week; and 

 still the plant is thriving and doing well. The finest specimens of 

 Begonia Rex I ever saw were produced in a living-room grown as 

 proposed, surrounded with a thin sheet of water. 



There is one contrivance in very general use for setting plants on 

 in a rooin that I must condemn as the very poorest invention for the 

 purpose; it has not a single redeeming feature to recommend it for 

 the use it is intended for. It is the common wire stand I have refer- 

 ence to. 



Tomy little report on house-plants allow me to add a plea for a more 

 universal use of plants in the living rooms. There is nothing that 

 makes a better impression on a stranger coining to a farmhouse, 

 especially in winter time, than a few bright flowers in the window. 

 I am not able to better illustrate this than from what I saw in a 

 newspaper not long ago, headed "Safety in the Love of Flowers." 

 Luther Loflin Mills, a prominent and well-known lawyer of Chicago 

 said that when a boy he frequently accompanied his father, who 

 was a wholesale merchant, on collecting trips through the North- 

 west. They had to travel by wagon, and as the father would have 

 large suins of money about him, it was often a problem where they 

 could safely put up for the night. " My boy," the old man used to 

 say, " it is safe to stay at a house where there are flowers in the win- 

 dow.'' 



And I think no one will deny that tlower.s do exercise a softening in- 

 fluence over our natures, make us take more comfort and rest at home 

 if we are surrounded by them; somehow, I imagine, they have a great 

 influence for good, especiallj' as regards children. It is my opinion 

 that if every child, boys as well as girls, was brought up in a home 

 surrounded by living plants and flowers, and thought some of the 

 mystery concerning them, and given an opportunity to care for 

 them and administer to their few wants, we should have a great deal 

 less of crime and more of happy homes. 



