252 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



And in this country, where property is so constantly changing hands, we 

 can never predict when we plant another man's grounds, that these grounds 

 may not become our own or those of our children. 



Study of Flowers. — It is very dommon with men who think there is 

 nothing rational that is not connected with dollars and cents, to ridicule the 

 study of flowers. " What good can come out of it," they ask. " Will it 

 improve a man's fortune or advance his interest ? Will it render him a 

 shrewder calculator ? Will it earn him his bread or make him a fortune ?" 

 They are greatly mistaken who believe that no actual utility, in the com- 

 mon niggardly sense of the term, can be derived from the pursuits of taste. 

 But granting that they will accomplish none of these useful purposes, we 

 would encourage such studies, as tending to fill up many hours of idleness 

 with an interesting and agreeable employment. Every new amusement 

 which can be participated without danger to the health or the morals, pro- 

 vides an additional means for the moral improvement of society, inasmuch 

 as it serves to divert many minds from pleasures which are liable to be ac- 

 companied with vice. Though to a mere plodder in the common business 

 of life it may seem almost ridiculous to be engaged with enthusiasm in 

 naming and preserving a few insignificant wild flowers, yet this very zeal 

 may preserve many a youth from corruption and ruin, whose passions 

 might otherwise lead him to seek the haunts of vice. There are many pur- 

 suits which are useful in no other way than by contributing to our pleas- 

 ures. Let plodding misers and conceited sensualists ridicule them, because 

 they neither fill one's coffers, nor spread his board — they forget that one 

 distinguishing mark between men and brutes, is, that the latter pursue only 

 the useful, while the former are about equally employed in the pursuit of 

 the fanciful. 



Plants as Purifiers of the Air within Doors. — The January 

 number of our Magazine contained a paragraph, with the above heading, in 

 which plants were recommended to be kept in our sitting and sleeping 

 rooms, on account of their tendency to purify the air. A correspondent, 

 Mr. James Jackson, in commenting on this paragraph, states that in a line 

 he received from Prof Asa Gray, the latter remarks that " Flowers are in- 

 jurious in close rooms, not by reason, however, of their exhalation of car- 

 bonic acid, (for this is not sufficient to do any harm,) but from the oils, &c., 

 in the aroma." He says again of the exhaling of carbonic acid, " This does 

 not amount to enough to do any harm under any ordinary circumstances, so 

 that this is not the reason why flowers are unhealthy in close rooms, sleep- 

 ing rooms, &-C." As regards plants not in bloom, he says : — " As to their 

 foliage as affecting the air, plants practically neither benefit nor injure the 

 air of rooms : the amount of oxygen they increase in daylight, or that of 

 carbonic acid they increase by night, not being large enough, relatively, to 

 make a sensible difference to an individual in the room." 



If the reader will take pains to refer to the paragraph which is the sub- 

 ject of these comments, he will find that we rested our argument in favor 

 of the wholesomeness of plants in a sleeping or sitting apartment on the 



