WINDOW PLANTS 149 



most suitable trees, shrubs, and other plants 

 for town gardening. It is surprising, too, 

 to what a state of perfection the slum dwellers 

 in East Greenwich, Deptford, Lambeth, and 

 other districts where the air is vitiated by im- 

 purities, can bring their box and window 

 plants. Indeed, some of the big pans of 

 Creeping Jenny and White and Blue Cam- 

 panula (which, by the by, are par excellence 

 the plants for confined districts where the air 

 is heated and impure) that I have seen ex- 

 hibited would do credit to country cultivators. 

 But almost everywhere over London, particu- 

 larly in the poorer quarters and where the air 

 is most impure, I have noticed how well cer- 

 tain species are made to succeed, whether 

 used as pot or box plants or for the decor- 

 ation of the tiny patch of back garden. At 

 many of the local flower shows, too, one is 

 amazed at the condition of the plants that 

 are brought for exhibition, and certainly some 

 ojf the best grown and trained specimens of 

 window box plants come from the worst slums 

 of the great metropolis. 



