STOCKING AND MANAGING WARDIAN CASES. 249 



Gloxineas and achimenes grow and flower well, and are 

 very beautiful ornaments ; these we cannot otherwise grow 

 in our parlors. 



Roses, pansies, and begonias thrive well, and bloom 

 profusely. 



The grand point in the selection of plants is, to grow 

 only those together which have the same requirements of 

 light and moisture. Thus ferns and verbenas would never 

 succeed in the same case ; the moisture necessary for the 

 former would be death to the latter. 



A very pretty stock of plants may be obtained from our 

 own woods. All our pretty mosses and ferns, and most of 

 our early spring flowers, thrive admirably. They should, 

 however, have a case to themselves, as they do not thrive 

 in company with rare exotics. These plants must be care- 

 fully taken up, and all sods shaken off, preserving of course 

 as much of the earth around the root as possible. 



The objection to transplanting sods with roots of choice 

 plants in them to a Wardian case is, you of necessity get 

 strong roots of rank grass, which grow so rapidly as to hide 

 your ferns and mosses, and are also too apt to introduce 

 slugs and worms, which destroy your rarer plants. We 

 once lost a fine Maranta by a slug which we introduced in 



