THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 335 



right through my small glass house, I shade with a woollen cloth. 

 Wool is a bad conductor of heat, and suitably tempers the solar heat, 

 contributing thereby to the maintenance of a uniform temperature 

 and humidity. If a linen cloth were used the leaves would flag, and 

 the plants would probably suffer. 



My method of heating is the most primitive, the simplest, and 

 cheapest that can be conceived ; no thermosiphon, no hot-water 

 pipes, no steam. Only some clay and a few bricks, some iron bars 

 and a small iron door. In winter- time the clay- bricks diffuse heat 

 enough to keep out the frost from every part of the cold-house, and 

 so two ends are served at once. 



Of ^^course I write for growers with limited purses. The rich 

 have many resources from which their less affluent brethren are 

 debarred. Not indeed that the wealthy can dispense with their 

 poorer neighbours, for all experience shows how mutually dependent 

 are our lives upon one another. 



And now to conclude with a list of the plants I grow in my 

 miniature stoves. I presume that the same plants could be grown 

 in living rooms by placing them in portable glass cases : — 



No. 1 Case. — Maraiifa illmtris, Jagoreana,virfjinaUs,Mac]co7jana, 

 regalis, roseo-pida, liieroqlijpliica, and pulchella. 



No. 2 Case. — Dichorisanclra vittata, undata, mosaica; Bertolonia 

 guttata alho punctatissima, roseo-punctatissima, margaritacea ; Gra- 

 vesia roseo-punctatissima; Sonerila margaritacea ; Eranthemum 

 igneum. 



No. 3 Case. — Fittonia argyrcneura, Pearcei ; Croton interruptum, 

 undulatum ; Eranthermim marmoratum ; Caladium chantiniiy Soya 

 hella. 



Ton will see that I dot my i's ; it is well in horticultaral matters. 

 We cannot bestow too much care and attention on plants, especially 

 on plants as delicate as those just enumerated, which many amateur 

 horticulturists regard as altogether beyond their reach. 



BRIGHT FLOWERS FOR DULL DATS. 



BY A TOWN AMATEUR, 



IN every garden containing a conservatory (or even a 

 greenhouse) an endeavour should be made to keep it gay 

 with flowers from October to March ; for during the 

 period embraced by these two months there are, practi- 

 cally, no flowers out-of-doors ; and if flowers are required 

 in the conservatory at any season of the year, I take it to be when 

 there are none outside, and when also the weather is so dull and 

 cold, as to make one be glad to take advantage of the comfortable 

 temperature of the plant-houses. Winter-flowering plants are 

 plentiful — far more so than is supposed to be the case ; but as a 

 grand display of flowers can be produced with greater facility during 

 the spring and summer than at any other time, the amateur is apt to 



Noyember. 



