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Hotisc-Plants. 



In this connection, it is proper to enter a protest against the barbarous 

 habit of excluding the sunshine from inhabited rooms, especially in winter. 

 Its effect is ahnost as depressing on children and delicately-organized 

 women as upon plants. 



There is one other obstacle to the growth of plants in the modern house; 

 which is, the plague of insects. Some varieties, especially the microscopic 

 red spider, are uncontrollable in a dry atmosphere, but retire at once before 

 proper evaporation. For the rest, improved resources, of which I may 

 speak at another time, make it tolerably easy now to keep house-plants 

 free from parasites. 



To illustrate theory by fact : I heat a moderate-sized house, containing 

 about twenty thousand cubic feet, with a furnace. I find it necessary to 

 expose seven square feet of evaporating surface in the air-chamber of the 

 ifurnace to produce a proper degree of atmospheric moisture. Half this 

 •surface would answer with better exposure. About a pint of water is evap- 

 orated in twenty-four hours for each seven thousand cubic feet in the house 

 in raising the temperature from 40° to 70°, two pints in raising it from 30° 

 to 70°, three pints in raising it from 20° to 70, four pints in raising it from 

 10° to 70°, and about five pints in raising it from zero to 70°. Thus, in the 

 extremest cold weather, it requires nearly six pails of water in twenty-four 

 hours to keep the atmosphere of the house soft and agreeable, though not 

 appreciably moist ; that is, not nearly as moist as the ordinary summer air 

 at 70°. 



At twelve windows, north, east, south, and west, of the house thus heated, 

 I have about seventy plants, mostly of the common kinds, in very fine 

 condition. During several years, I have never known them to be injured 

 by the furnace-heat, and never by the gas, freely consumed, except in the 

 single instance of an ivy growing near the ceiling of a room during an ac- 

 cidental leakage of gas. 



I find that ivies thrive peculiarly under the conditions described, grow- 

 ing well in positions farthest from the light ; as, for instance, on the hearth, 

 forming a magnificent fireboard. Six or eight varieties of variegated- 

 leaved ivy thrive equally well with the common. 



I find that roses which have blossomed during the summer in the 

 ground, been potted after hard frost, stripped ruthlessly of every leaf, and 



