306 Window Greenhouses. 



old broken teapot in some cottage window ; and some may 

 have thence inferred the uselessness of care and science in 

 the treatment of plants. I do not draw that conclusion from 

 the fact. For look at that sickly thing in the next window 

 to it. How much better and healthier the flowers look in 

 the one window than the other ! And yet the houses are 

 built on the same plan, and stand next to one another ; and 

 therefore the inference I should draw is, that there is a right 

 way and a wrong way of growing flowers ; and, further, that 

 a person who uses the right, will succeed under great appa- 

 rent disadvantages. And a closer inspection always shows 

 ithe difference to be in the person and not in the place, and 

 ithat such persons rarely spend much time or pains upon their 

 pets, and yet everything seems to succeed with them : it is 

 -plain that those who will follow their example will make 

 their window plants flourish as well as theirs do. And this 

 is so true, that if a person will not make up his mind to act 

 upon the right system when he knows it, I cannot recom- 

 mend him to keep plants in-doors, many or few, unless for 

 the wholesome discipline of disappointment. 



Kow I believe, sir, you will agree with me, that the right 

 system for plants, as for children, is the natural system ; and 

 that nostrums, and secrets, and tricks, are, for the most part, 

 not only pernicious but silly. As a general rule, and under 

 similar circumstances, what will grow a good cabbage will 

 grow a good pelargonium or fuchsia. And that the apparent 

 departures from this rule are only examples of it, and depend 

 on common-sense reasons drawn from the nature of the 

 original climate of the species of plant. 



And the natural system may be comprised under two 

 heads : 1, not to Id your plants suff'er by neglect ; 2, nor to 

 make them suffer by interference. If many people let them 

 dwindle or die by forgetting to water them at proper times, 

 or to shelter them from excess of sun or of cold, others, not 

 less numerous, think their flowers can never be thriving 

 unless themselves are doing something to make them thrive. 

 And so they bring them to their end, or to pale, sickly, 

 scraggy things on stilts, that can never repay their owner for 

 the trouble of rearing them. 



