Window-Sill and the Area. 
123 
put aside in any dry , cool place, safe from frost; even if they are in the 
dark for a week will not much matter, but light is good for them always. 
A dry, hot room is not the place for them at all—better a dark cellar or 
the roughest shed; and if the place they are taken to is one where long- 
protracted frost will be sure to find its way, lay them on their sides upon 
the ground, and put about six inches of dry hay over the pots lightly—no 
frost will hurt them then. 
Equal care must be taken to protect the roots of the plants from injury by 
excessive heat. It is a good plan with such plants as calceolarias, verbenas, 
lobelias, and pelargoniums, when placed in the full sun, to drop them into 
empty pots a trifle larger than the pots they are in, and fill the space 
between with moss or sawdust: this affords sufficient protection. Of course, 
ornamental pots may be employed for this purpose, and this is always the 
best way to use them, for it is a bad practice to grow plants in ornamental 
pots; they should be used merely as receptacles, or they will not last long; 
and moreover, it is but seldom plants of any kind will grow so well as in the 
common garden pots that are in use everywhere. 
As to watering, an occasional deluge is almost as objectionable as perpetual 
insufficiency. Give water moderately and regularly ; let it be soft, and if not 
warm, at least not decidedly cold. Large plants in small pots will not continue 
long in health unless most carefully tended as to watering, and it will usually 
help them if a mere pinch of some fertilizing substance, such as half-an- 
ounce of guano, is dissolved in every gallon of water which is intended for 
them. Remove all seeds or seed pods as fast as they appear, for the bloom 
soon ceases if seeds are allowed to ripen. Dead leaves must be removed, of 
course. 
A well-filled flower-stand may prove an agreeable window ornament, pro¬ 
vided it is kept always well furnished with plants in the best of health; but 
we see some dingy examples at times that are fitting “ adornments ” only of a 
house where slovens hold the rule. Lightness and elegance of outline are 
to be studied in choosing them, and no little care must be exercised to keep 
them gay at all seasons. It is a folly to suffer plants to pass all their days 
in such receptacles ; their proper use is to exhibit fine specimens of blooming 
plants; and of these, greenhouse exotics are most suitable. Where a green¬ 
house is well managed, there will be no difficulty in furnishing the stand with 
a succession of fairy roses, zonal pelargoniums, fuchsias, heaths, genistas, 
azaleas, camellias, calceolarias, etc.; and it should be the aim of the possessor 
