MONTHLY CALENDAR. 723 



2263. Cold Frames should receive the same amount of attention. Lose no 

 opportunity of exposing the plants freely to the air ; more harm is done by 

 not doing so than is generally imagined ; the plants are started into a sickly 

 growth, damaging to the crop and discreditable to the manager. 



2264. "Where there is a will there is a way," is an old saying, and I 

 believe a true one. There are many plants naturally too tender to stand our 

 winters, but which it may be desired to keep. Both in the flower and kitchen 

 garden, there are subjects which may be preserved by a little judicious man- 

 agement. In the first place, some plants that are called half-hardy will con- 

 tinue to grow in the winter long after very tender subjects have been killed 

 by the frost. I have often noticed verbenas, calceolarias, gazanias, &c., 

 flourishing up to February, when a frost more severe than formerly comes 

 and kills them. Had these plants received the protection of a frame at that 

 moment, they might have been kept through it : consequently, we know, that 

 by securing a number of such things in frames in the autumn, they may be 

 kept during the winter ; but they must not be crowded together, and should 

 have good hold of the soil before winter. The frames should have a foot or 

 so of earth or rotten dung banked round them. This will resist the frost at 

 the sides : it may be kept out at the the top by judicious covering and un- 

 covering ; that is, never leave the covering on more than one night without 

 moving: it. 



§ 8.— Window-Gardening. 



2265. Beginners are very apt to make a mistake in supposing their first 

 efforts in plant-culture should, of necessity', be successful ; the contrary is in 

 general the case. First attempts, in ninety -nine cases out of every hundred, 

 are merely so much profit and loss, — loss in plants, and knowledge gained of 

 the necessary treatment. Gardening, like every other art, requires not only 

 practice, but observation ; and those who have most failures, provided they 

 observe the causes of failure, are likely to become the most skilful in the end. 

 Many ladies and gentlemen occupy themselves daily among a few choice 

 plants, and through the cause indicated, have become proficient in the 

 management of them, feeling amply rewarded for the pains taken by the new 

 beauties successively unfolded by the plants. 



2266. The most necessary condition to successful culture is to have proper 

 appliances, — that is, under ceilain considerations, — for instance, provided 

 only a window is available, then it should be fitted with a ledge or shelf, both 

 inside and out, so that the plants can bo close to the glass when inside, 

 where they can have the full light ; and also that they can be exposed to the 

 open air on every occasion when the weather will permit. If a window is 

 fitted in this way, half a dozen plants can be grown creditably, with very 

 little trouble. They can be placed outside for the purpose of watering 

 them, even in winter ; and in wet weather they can be inside, with the window 



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