Concluding Remarks. 179 



attract our attention. We have the universal privilege 

 of Nature — the right to enjoy all the beautiful works 

 of God — the right to share in all the many free gifts 

 He has provided for His creatures, the free air of 

 Heaven, the songs of the singing birds, the verdure of 

 the woods and fields, and the beauty of the countless 

 hosts of wild flowers that decorate the earth. To one 

 who has enjoyed those pleasant sights and sounds of 

 country life, and remembers them amid the dust and 

 smoke of the city, a few flowering plants and ferns 

 must be a real benefit, and delightful remembrances of 

 bygone days, conjuring up happy dreams of the leafy 

 woods, the hedge-rowed lanes and the breezy open 

 fields of the country. 



It only requires you to understand a few plain rules 

 to enable you to be a successful window gardener, and 

 those rules may be summed up in a few words. Give 

 your plants sufficient pot room and drainage, and 

 proper kinds of soil ; give them sufficient water ; keep 

 them clean and tidy, and well trained and staked ; 

 give them plenty of light and air, and protection from 

 cold draughts. AH this we have discussed in the 

 preceding chapters ; but I would again impress upon 

 you the good rule never to let your plants sufier for 

 want of water, or to sufier from giving them too much. 

 Nothing brings on disease and ultimate death so quickly 

 as neglecting them in those two particulars. Allowing 

 them to get often dry, throws them into a faded, stunted 

 state of growth ; then Greenfiy and other vermin soon 

 follow. Giving too much water tends to sodden and 

 sour the soil; then root action ceases, they cannot 



