126 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



always be kept as open as the weather will permit, to give air 

 to the plants and let off the wet, which may be seen, when the 

 house is closed, running down the windows and walls in 

 copious streams. There is no good without its evil, no en- 

 joyment mthout some corresponding trouble to maintain it. 

 The conservatory, so great an ornament, so exquisite a luxury, 

 may, ^\T.thout care, be the means of producing sickness in the 

 house, destroying the furniture and ornaments, and doing 

 endless mischie:^ unless it be counteracted by attention. Let 

 the throwing open of the doors be the exception and not the 

 rule. Keep the damp air from the house as you would a pesti- 

 lence. It is delightful to smell the perfume, but it carries 

 poison with it if allowed to make its way all over the house. 



The same argument tells against keeping too many plants 

 confined in dwelling houses ; remember that if you pour a few 

 quarts of water once a day into the pots in which they grow, 

 it will be all gone in a short time in vapour, and settled by 

 condensation in your curtains, looking-glasses, pictures, the 

 paper on the walls, and into your own lungs. If you must 

 have plants, let the windows be open in summer and moderate 

 the number in winter. It is not that plants are unwholesome, 

 or the perfume injurious ; it is simply the dampness which 

 arises from the soil, and which you charge ready to go off 

 again every time you put water to them. If the same quantity 

 of water were sprinkled all over the floor of a bed-room, as is 

 frequently given to the plants in the same room, the occupant 

 would fancy the damp would almost kill her ; but gallons are 

 distributed among the plants, which give it off again in vapour 

 as surely, if not so quickly, as the floor would. Where, there- 

 fore, you keep plants, let them have aU the air all the day ; and 

 that you may suffer as little as possible from dampness, water 

 them the first thing in the morning, and open the windows. 

 In winter this can only be done on fine days ; but, fortunately, 

 in v/inter plants want but little moisture, because it evapo- 

 rates so slowly as to be of no consequence. 



THE IMAKmG OF HOT-BEDS : 



THEIR USES AND THEIR GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 



The common acceptation of the word hot-bed is, a garden 

 frame and glass heated by dung, though there are many now 

 heated by tanks and hot water ; and, instead of the wooden 



