CH^I^TER, XII. 
Climbing Vines — Balcony Gardening. 
What delicate taste ami suggestive beauty seem gathered up in the associatioiiF 
of climbing vines. 
Helps to Home Adornment we have often called them, and the fairy fingers 
who twine them around their parlor windows, or along the piazza, or on tlie rus- 
tic trellis before the cottage door, will tell you how well they appreciate their 
value in making home .so pleasant. Climbing vines afford us an opportunity of 
clothing not the outside of the window alone, but its inside also, with verdure 
and decorations of greenery, for our imagination must now include, as part of 
the domain of house-gardening, the ornature of the outside of the window,, 
piazza, or balcony, as well as the interior. Ideas of refinement, taste and beauty, 
are invariably suggested by the presence of climbing vines. Let the corneis of 
our houses, or the edges of our windows, be hid under the delicate foliage or 
brilliant flowers, and their natural festoons of mingled verdure and bloom will 
soften the most gloomy surroundings 
Our new built houses, with all their architectural finish and imposing design, 
still lack tlie last softening polish which comes only from the mellowing and 
genial touch of the vine. The first thing to be considered in growing vines 
indoors is the soil. Bulbous plants require light and very loose soil. Short, 
fibrous roots need a firm, fine soil. Long and spreading roots need a heavier and 
coarser soil than others. For most plants good garden loam, loosened, when 
necessary, by mixing with it street sand or gravel, and enriched by the application 
of a liquid stimulant answers very well. To make this stimulant, mix half a 
peck of stable manure or street sweepings, with a quart of pulverized charcoal, 
in a thiee-gallon vessel, and fill up tlie vessel with soft water. After it has 
stood a week the vessel will be read}' for use. It should be clear. Water j'our 
plants with this three days consecutively, once in three weeks, during their ear- 
liest growth and blooming. It should be perfectly odorless ; if not, then add 
more charcoal. As the liquid becomes more exhausted add more water. This 
quantity of fertilizing material will supply stimulant enough for two dozen large 
plants during six months 
If you can obtain leaf mould — the fine, dark soil from the woods — take this 
for a third ingredient of your soil. It will prove, also, quite as nutritive as this 
fertilizer. If fertilizing liquids are used, they must be applied directly to the 
soil; but when water only is used, the whole plant should be showered with it, 
if possible 
