PARLOR AND WINDOW GARDENING. 247 



in the windows and balconies of the houses. In some of 

 the best streets, hardly a house can be seen that is not so 

 adorned, and even the most squalid abodes of vice and 

 poverty are often relieved by a miniature flower-garden on 

 the window-sill. The most common style is the window- 

 box, made to fit the window, usually from four to five 

 feet long, and about six to eight inches wide and deep. 

 It is made of every conceivable pattern, of terra-cctta, 

 cork, and rustic design in endless variety. The plants 

 used are not very numerous in variety, being selected of 

 kinds suited to keep in bloom or to sustain their bright- 

 ness of foliage. Now and then the ribbon-line planting 

 is adopted on the balconies ; a very handsome box in 

 this style had first a row of Moneywort (Lysimachia 

 nummularia), which formed a drooping curtain of four 

 feet in length ; half-way down on it drooped blue Lo- 

 belia ; then upon the Lobelia fell a bright yellow Sedum 

 (Stone-crop), then against the Sedum, for the top-line or 

 background, a dwarf Zonale Geranium, a perfect blaze 

 of scarlet. Hardly two of these window decorations were 

 alike in the best streets, and varied from a simple box of 

 Mignonette or Sweet Alyssum to cases filled with the 

 rarest Ferns or Orchids. The effect as a whole is most 

 pleasing, and one that cannot fail to strike the most 

 indifferent observer as an agreeable change from the 

 seemingly never ending brick and stone of the city. The 

 window-gardening is not confined to private dwellings, 

 but all the leading hotels are so decorated. In the dining- 

 room of the Langham Hotel, a favorite resort of 

 Americans, some hundreds of well-grown specimens of 

 plants are placed in the windows, and kept in perfect 

 order during the entire summer. The selection of plants 

 is made regardless of expense, and in looking around the 

 dining-hall it is with some difficulty that you decide if 

 you are not dining in the midst of a vast conservatory, 

 so redolent is the air with the perfume of flowers. The 



