16 WINTER GREENERIES AT HOME. 



mirily is ? Would not its very necessary and really hon- 

 orable work be rendered more attractive by the company 

 of verdure and bloom ? 



If the kitchen is not available for our purpose, perhaps 

 there is a well-lighted chamber, which may be warmed 

 from the hall or an adjacent room. If it is generally 

 unoccupied at night, or during the evening, it is so much 

 the better, and may be made to furnish the most im- 

 portant conditions required for the cool greenhouse 

 plants. Next in advantages for such plants is the mod- 

 erately and evenly heated parlor, and last of all the com- 

 monly overheated sitting-room. But the last for some 

 purposes may be the first for others ; and if this room 

 must resemble a hothouse, it is the best for hothouse 

 plants. 



Whatever ( ' living-room " may be selected, it is doubt- 

 less not quite so well adapted to our plants as to ourselves. 

 It is not their natural home within doorsj and they have 

 no power of helping themselves by going out for a change. 

 But were not plants and people made to live together, 

 more or less ? And, in these artificial conditions, can we 

 not make some compromise which shall be favorable to 

 both ? 



It is an important fact, and one often overlooked, that 

 for the most part what is good or bad for the plants is 

 equally so for us. Do they need pure air and abundant 

 light ? So do we. Do they suffer from the parching 

 dryness of our rooms ? It is bad for us. Are they choked 

 with the dust from -our carpets ? How we sympathize 

 with them. Some tropical plants require a tropical heat, 

 but our most familiar friends are temperate in their de- 

 mands perhaps more temperate than we. On the 

 whole, we thrive best in just such a condition of our 

 living-room as is best for our plants ; that is, in as near 

 an approach as is possible to out-door summer. And 

 isn't that something like Eden ? 



