House Plants fob Winter. 



By William W. Cook. 



Bead before the Worcester County Horticultural Society, Feb. 24, A. D. 1881. 



M7\ President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : — The subject for 

 onr consideration to-day is " House Plants for Winter." And I 

 understand that plants in conservatories connected with dwellings 

 are included in the term used, as well as plants in the sitting- 

 room or parlor. And the phase of the subject which I shall trj 

 to present in these remarks, is, " How to grow them." 



And though I shall mostly speak in general terras, only alluding 

 as it were incidentally to particular kinds or classes of plants, I 

 shall endeavor through the whole, as far as I may be able, to 

 answer the thousand-and-one questions, which are put to me 

 every year, by ladies who have some kind of sick plant. Now 

 a plant is not sick without cause. That cause may be too much 

 water. It may be too little water. It may not have a congenial 

 soil. It may have been kept in too high a tetnperature, or it 

 may have been chilled. Now I cannot tell what ails a plant 

 even when I see it, with a great degree of certainty, because I 

 do not know what kind of care it has had. 



But I know there are certain general principles of treatment 

 necessary to be observed by every one wiio would grow plants 

 successfully. A practical knowledge of these will not only aid 

 one in keeping plants well, but it will also aid in detecting the 

 cause, as well as in applying the cure for sickness. These general 

 principles of treatment require that the plants must have a suit- 

 able soil to grow in, a proper temperature around them both day 

 and night, and a suflficiency of moisture without any excess, 

 applied to both roots and foliage. If these three things are 

 faithfully attended to, it only remains to defend the plants from 

 insects and they must flourish. To begin right in growing 

 plants we must have a congenial soil for the roots. This sliould 

 be light and rich, without any tendency to sourness. And it 

 should not become baked and liard from the frequent wat(;ring 

 necessary for plaTits in pots. On tliis account, the soil from the 

 garden beds siiould never be used. When this is watered, it 

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