ON PLANTS IN DRAWING-ROOMS AND PLANT-CASES, &c. 
109 
have been in use for some years on the Continent, but it is only recently that they 
have been much employed in this country. To those who are fond of having a 
few plants constantly accessible to inspection, they will be an interesting and 
useful article, especially in towns. The plants will be preserved from any deposit 
of dust on their leaves or flowers, the whole may be easily shifted about if 
necessary, their strong exhalations may be confined, or partially released at 
pleasure, and the humidity proper to the plants will be more under com- 
mand. 
From the simplicity of their construction, and the reduction in the price of 
glass, they will doubtless, ere long, be obtained at a trifling cost. Many of those, 
however, which have come before us, are too plain to accord with a costly furnished 
drawing-room : nevertheless, those exhibited last year at Chiswick, by Mr. Potts, 
of Birmingham, seem to have left nothing to wish for further in that respect ; — 
they are really elegant, and elaborately finished. 
In their formation small hooks or eyelets should be fastened in the top bars, so 
that orchidacese may be suspended. As it will also sometimes be needful to water 
the plants, a moveable bottom should be made for any excess to drain into, so that 
it may be easily removed. 
Some little taste will be requisite in the choice and arrangement of plants, so 
as to blend the more slender and graceful growing kinds with those of stouter and 
more erect habit ; and to show their flowers to advantage. To aid in this, and at 
the same time to contribute more variety, a few Lycopodiums and some of the 
more airy-looking ferns, may be mixed amongst those placed in the lower part. 
There is little doubt but a small collection of the dwarfer species of Cape 
Heaths — a tribe which perhaps suffers as much as any other in a dry room — 
might be successfully grown in this way by those who cannot purchase the luxury 
of a greenhouse ; at least, when we find that without such aid they will retain a 
tolerable appearance, despite the heat of the room, we may reasonably expect that 
they will exist and experience less injury, when they are no longer exposed to a 
dry air in conjunction with it. 
But there are many plants which flower abundantly, that it will not be 
practicable to remove from the houses, but which would nevertheless furnish a 
good supply of cut flowers for the drawing-room; and by proper care, and a few 
simple contrivances, these may be preserved perfect in beauty for a considerable 
length of time. The same atmospherical agencies which assist in lengthening the 
duration of blossoms on a growing plant, are essential to their preservation when 
cut and placed in the drawing-room, and vice versa. Too much aridity soon 
destroys them, so does the opposite extreme. An agitated air, especially if a dry 
one, such as we commonly have in a sitting-room, extracts moisture from them 
too rapidly. 
The remarks of Mrs. Loudon in her " Gardening for Ladies," recently 
published, are much to the purpose, and worth knowing. This lady says, " The 
