APPENDIX 229 



place it is to occupy. Certain boxes are made of metal, 

 others of wood with metal pans, and others of plain wood 

 fashioned by the neighborhood carpenter. The home- 

 made box made of odd pieces of lumber knocked from 

 grocery boxes will do just as well as any of the more ex- 

 pensive -patents. A dime's worth of paint will cover all 

 the boxes needed for the front of a house. 



The quality of the soil and the drainage are most im- 

 portant. No box need leak to any extent, nor plants 

 grow soggy, if the bottom of the box has been covered 

 with a layer of broken stone and some charcoal. Nearly 

 every florist has a heap of properly mixed mold from 

 which he is willing to sell. It contains the correct pro- 

 portions of black earth, sand, and clay for flower culture. 

 The soil just under the sod in vacant lots is also suitable 

 for this purpose, and in fact any garden earth will do 

 that has been enriched with manure finely worked over. 



There are as many ways of selecting what shall be put 

 into the window box as there are gardeners. For a for- 

 mal decoration of an English front or a colonial type of 

 house a simple hedge of small box trees before the win- 

 dows answers the purpose. Where there are many win- 

 dow decorations about a house it is pleasant to introduce 

 at least one of these quaint arrangements to diffuse a pun- 

 gent fragrance. The box of ferns, or English ivy or 

 myrtle gracefully trailing, is -at once elegant and austere. 

 Although of only one color, the tender greens kept fresh 



