92 WINTER GREENERIES AT HOME. 



sash, will answer every purpose of use, while the plants 

 may be depended on to furnish the beauty. 



Now as the plants have already been selected [See Chap. 

 III., Suitable Plants, under Selections], we have only to 

 see to their proper accommodation in the case. By the 

 ordinary method, the box is filled with soil, having about 

 an inch of fine gravel and bits of charcoal at the bottom 

 for drainage, and the plants are at once imbedded in it as 

 in the open ground. A better plan, it seems to me, is 

 suggested by the well-known advantages of pot culture. 

 At any rate, I shall try it at the first opportunity, and 

 do not hesitate to recommend the experiment to you. 

 After laying the drainage material at the bottom, set in 

 the largest pots and add sufficient soil around them to 

 bring up the next siz of pots even, and so keep on add- 

 ing layers of soil and pots, until all are in place with the 

 rims at a common level just at the proper surface of the 

 soil. This, you see, is only the " plunging" process on a 

 small scale. It certainly has some very obvious advan- 

 tages, such as the more convenient removal of any plant 

 without disturbing the rest ; while it is not open, so far 

 as I can see, to any possible objections. It brings the 

 plants sufficiently near together they are generally quite 

 too much crowded and, like the other plan, it allows the 

 whole surface of the soil to be covered with a mat of Ly- 

 copodiums or Selaginellas, and creeping Ferns. 



The soil, with either method, should be more than 

 usually light, and composed very largely of leaf-mould 

 from the woods. 



The box having been satisfactorily filled, and once 

 thoroughly watered, is ready to receive its glass covering 

 and begin service. It will henceforward need light, all 

 it can get, but not direct, or at least intense sunshine. 

 It will ordinarily manage the rain for itself, like an inde- 

 pendent little world, evaporating water from the soil 

 and returning it condensed by the surface of the glass. 



