130 Extracts from the Journals, [July, 



been introduced within the last two years. — Annals de la Soc. 

 d^Jlgric. et de Bat. de Gand, for March, 1846. 



One is naturally led to compare the advantages of a window- 

 garden with those of a Ward's case, and probibly few amateurs 

 would hesitate for a moment in deciding that the form?r is beyond 

 all comparison the more useful of the two. It has always ap- 

 peared to me, that the utility of Ward's cases, when employed for 

 growing plants in rooms, has been greatly overrated, while it is 

 not possible to appreciate too highly the benefit they have confer- 

 red on botany and horticulture, by affording the means of trans- 

 porting plants by sea, with the certainty of success, from distant 

 parts of ♦the w^orld. A problem has thus been solved that had 

 baffled the ingenuity of collectors, and appeared to defy the re- 

 sources of science for several centuries. 



But what does the amateur gain by filling his windows with 

 these cases? After all that has been said and written on the sub- 

 ject, it is a fact that very few flowering plants will thrive in 

 them, especially in town houses; but the great objection is that 

 they give no occupation; there is no gardening to be done in a 

 Ward's case. After the novelty is over it excites no more inte- 

 rest than any other article of furniture in the room, and M^henever 

 a few cut flowers and a basket of green moss can be obtained, 

 gratifying the sense of smell as Avell as pleasing the eye, it is al- 

 most useless. 



Now one of the great advantages of a window-garden is the 

 agreeable occupation it affords to those amateur gardeners who 

 are imprisoned in towns, to invalids, and to lady amateurs, and 

 young people who are cofined to the house by bad weather, in 

 town or in the country. Watering the plants, tying up climbers, 

 making cuttings, and raising seedlings, shifting the plants, watch- 

 ing the daily progress and gradual opening of the flower-buds, 

 may serve to beguile many a tedious hour, and persons unaccus- 

 tomed to plant culture would hardly believe how much occupation, 

 amusement, and instruction these little gardens will supply. 



It will be found a great improvement, and tend to secure a 

 healthy vegetation, to plunge the pots in moss and to cover them 

 with the same material. The green moss is in itself a beautiful ob- 

 ject, while it serves to conceal what is the very reverse, a collec- 

 tion of red garden-pots; then by keeping it wet in summer, and 

 dry or nearly so in winter, an atmosphere may be readily pro- 

 vided exactly suited to the wants of t"he plants, and the soil in 

 the pots is kept at all times in an equable state with regard to 

 moisture and temperature, protected alike from a burning sun in 

 summer, and from the cold occasioned by evaporation, or by radi- 

 ation under a clear frosty sky in winter. 



The moss likewise allows the plants to be frequently watered 



