House-Plants. 153 



HOUSE-PLANTS. 



How to make plants grow in the house is a much more important ques- 

 tion than how to make them grow in the greenhouse. Few persons have 

 conservatories. Almost every person has a window at which the spring 

 and summer of plant-life may be fostered and maintained during the long 

 winter months. 



Formerly, almost every house had its plants. The children and the 

 flowers were the chief ornaments of the old homestead. During (he last 

 generation, or since the introduction of furnaces and gas, the cultivation 

 of plants in our houses has steadily declined. I propose now to show that 

 this great deprivation and loss to our modern houses is unnecessary, and 

 that plants may flourish as well under the dispensation of gas and the fur- 

 nace as in the days of the old wood-fire and mould-candles. 



It may be true that plants will not grow in an artificially desiccated air. 

 The skin and the delicate membranes of the throat and lungs parch in 

 the dry furnace-heat just like the leaves of the plants. The freshest com- 

 plexion grows wizened by a winter of this sirocco. What, then, shall be 

 done in our furnace-heated houses ? Simply introduce evaporators, which 

 shall furnish to the air at least one-half as much moisture as the air natu- 

 rally contains at the same tanperature in spring or summer. The shrinking 

 of the wood-work of houses, or warping of furniture, are indications of 

 an unnaturally dry heat, which is fatal to plant, and injurious to animal life. 



It is true, also, that plants will not thrive in close rooms charged with the 

 sulphurous acid escaping from the combustion of anthracite, or a product 

 of combustion of impure illuminating gas ; and, in the same atmosphere, 

 the throat and lungs of human beings will suffer more or less severely. 

 What is the remedy.'' Open a ventilator into the chimney, near the top of 

 every room, if you can do no better; and keep it open, at least during the 

 evening, while the gas is burning. 



I am prepared to say that furnace-heat and gas-light are no obstacles to 

 the cultivation of plants, observing only the precautions which are equally 

 essential to human health. I think the rule should be broadly stated, that 

 any room in which plants refuse to grow is unfit for human life. 



