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even their generally gay flowers could scarcely 

 eclipse. There were two great difficulties in the 

 way of growing window plants which had not been 

 adverted to, — insects, and the fumes of burning 

 gas ; of the former. Red spider and Scale were the 

 worst to the window gardener. Scale was easily 

 destroyed by dipping the plants in water heated to 

 130°, and Red Spider in water in which coal oil had 

 been dropped — barely enough coal oil to make a 

 thin glaze on the water. From the bad results of 

 burning gas he knew no remedy, but to partition off 

 the plant cabinet from the rest of the room. 



Mr. King, doubted whether unless there was a 

 leakage from the gas pipes there could be any dan- 

 ger ; so far as he understood, there was nothing left 

 after the combustion of gas which could prove 

 injurious. 



Mr. Roet. Scott had never noticed any bad 

 effects of gas on plants in dwelling houses ; although 

 he had noticed that when we had our exhibitions 

 at the Academy of Music, where the gas had to be 

 lit day and night, the plants suffered very much. 

 He thought it was the escape of gas, not the com- 

 bustion. Had seen in Mr. Fahnestock's green- 

 houses terrible losses from the escajoe of gas. Open- 

 I ing of doors and the usual ventilation of rooms, he 

 thought would prevent any danger to plants from 

 this cause. 



Mr. Hibbert, thought the consumption as well 

 as the escape of gas had a baneful effect on plants. 

 In his employer's parlor where the gas arrangements 

 he thought were perfect, Azaleas soon dropped 

 their leaves after being taken there from the green- 

 houses. This he had observed for three year past. 

 Bouquets and baskets of cut flowers also soon faded 

 away under such circumstances. In his own house, 

 where he burned coal oil, he could keep plants 

 much better than he could in his employer's gas- 

 lighted rooms 



Mr. Blodgett believed the injury laid to the 

 door of burning gas, was really the fault of dry air 

 from furnace heat. 



Mr, Meehan gave instances which had come 

 under his observation in Germantown, of people 

 noted for their success in window culture, under 

 the old state of things, who had failed after intro- 

 ducing gas, although no change had been in their 

 old fashioned heating arrangements. 



Mr. Blodgett grew plants tolerably well in his 

 gas-lit rooms, by taking care to keep plates of wa- 

 ter about the furnace registers to modify the dryness 

 of the atmosphere, but many failed in time. The 

 Azalea seem to stand room culture best. He had 

 saved them for a number of years in good condition. 



7cr^^ 



— 



They would hold their blossoms for 20 or 25 days. 

 Greraniums would always grow well for him, but did 

 not bloom freely. 



Mr. Kilvington said he had found a curious 

 notion prevail in town that plants in rooms were 

 injurious to health. His mother was a rare lover 

 of flowers. The house was stock full of them, she 

 lived amongst them for 85 years. 



Mr. Lorin Blodgett kept plants in house mainly 

 on account of their health-giving value. 



Mr. a. W. Harrison explained that plants were 

 essential to health. The human breath exhaled 

 carbonic acid gas, which when it accumulates in 

 large quantities becomes a deadly poison. By a 

 wise provision of nature, plants were so constituted 

 as to use as nutritious food what was fatal to man. 

 They consume carbonic acid and thus purified, in- 

 stead of contaminated the atmosphere. 



Mr. Rodney King suggested that some flowers 

 had peculiar odors, which might have an injurious 

 tendency, and thus give rise to the general error 

 refered to. 



Mr. Sypher (of the New York Tribune), char- 

 acterized the idea of room plants causing disease, 

 as a prejudice, but not altogether a vulgar one, for 

 there was a sort of mania amongst Savans to ac- 

 count for diseases, which frequently seized on coin- 

 cidences in the absence of real causes for disease, 

 and this of plants being unhealthy has been urged 

 by men of reputed intelligence. He proceeded in a 

 pleasing manner, referringto the great beautyof many 

 wild flowers, and of their adaptation to home adorn- 

 ments. As an instance of their capacity for improve- 

 ment, he in stanced a friend in Lancaster, who had 

 produced Wild Anemones as double as the foreign 

 one. The Central Park in New York had paid at- 

 tention to this. Beautiful wild flowers and native 

 shrubs, afforded some of the chief objects of interest 

 to the visitor, and in the pursuit of this object the 

 Central Park Commission had communication with 

 and the co-operation of the chief Associations of 

 Science and Natural History in the land. New 

 York could boast of no such splendid Hall as this 

 of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, but a 

 New Yorker might be pardoned for giving this just 

 tribute to the management of the Central Park. 



Several gentlemen spoke of the lack of artistic 

 talent manifest in Fairmount Park, and 



Mr. Lorin Blodgett suggested that he had no 

 doubt the New Board of commissioners would gladly 

 receive any suggestions the Society might make to 

 it, and with the understanding that some such 

 resolution should be introduced at the next stated 

 meeting of the Society, the meeting adjourned. 



