90 WINTER GREENERIES AT HOME. 



beautiful, if not arborescent. Make the experiment, and 

 see how nature submits to the hand of the artist. Two 

 forms of supports are here given ; in figure 17 the sticks 

 are fashioned to make a globe, and in figure 18 the form 

 of an umbrella. 



With all hard-wooded plants, and many others also, 

 this work of pinching or cutting back is necessary to give 

 them a compact and symmetrical shape. Where the shoots 

 bear the flower-buds, they must of course be left until the 

 flowers are produced, and receive at some time subse- 

 quent more or less of cutting back. Roses and Fuchsias, 

 you remember, are to have this treatment when brought 

 from their dormant state in the cellar ; Daphnes and Aza- 

 leas, before going out to their summer's rest in the gar- 

 den ; and Carnations, while undergoing their prepara- 

 tion for winter-flowering. But with very many plants 

 it is better to prevent the straggling growth, and the con- 

 sequent necessity of pruning, by simply pinching off the 

 terminal buds just when and where the straggling begins. 

 With a little observation and practice you will soon be 

 able to keep your plants neat and attractive in shape, by 

 exercising your taste in merely regulating their growth. 



WARDIAN CASES. 



We cannot finish our furnishing and fixing, without 

 at least considering the question of these miniature green- 

 houses. Unless we can manage to obtain them in some 

 way, and of some kind, we must relinquish all hope of 

 having as our permanent home companions, some of the 

 most delicate and beautiful plants that grow. So the ques- 

 tion of what and how has a good claim to consideration. 



The only difficulty, I presume, is the cost. " Wardian 

 Cases " have been generally ranked as articles of luxury 

 and made to correspond. The common and cheaper 

 " glass shades" might serve for single specimens of 



