OCTOBEB 11. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
19 
industrious neighbour, Mr. Love-old-ways, has been 
toiling himself to death in surface watering every 
night, but you see, sir, my pronged hoe heats his 
water-can hollow.” In the window were a few plants 
fit for a lady’s parlour, and everything within doors 
clean and comfortable. Passing on, we came to a 
cottage with rather too many plants in the window; 
the colour of the leaves scarcely discernible, so coated 
with dust and insects. Need we progress farther to 
iind traces of tardiness and neglect? 
“ Ah, now,” says Mr. Quibble, “ I have fairly 
caught you tripping, Mr. F-. Surely no one 
would put these plants in their window that did not 
love them; and you have as much as said that where 
that love existed, untidiness would he a stranger.” 
No, not quite so much as that. Many, very many, 
put plants in their window, not because they really 
love them, hut because they wish to he thought as 
genteel and grand as their neighbours. The flower 
in a pot is, in such circumstances, merely viewed as 
an emblem of having gained a certain position in 
society. Let the fashion only change, and they would 
at once change with it. Again, many who love 
flowers allow their plants to get dirty and dusty be¬ 
cause they are ignorant how to treat them. The ini¬ 
tiated are too apt to imagine that the effect produced 
upon vegetation when dusty by a good shower of 
rain would teach the possessors of plants a lesson 
never to he forgotten. But they forget that they 
gained the knowledge they possees not at once, hut 
by degrees. They forget that great truths and great 
principles are only simple after they are known. 
Many labourers will sit carelessly for hours in wet 
clothing, never dreaming that they are laying the 
foundation for rheumatism and premature old age. 
Others will he as careless of changing their body 
clothing as a Turk, and, far from imitating him in 
the use of the water hath, will entertain as great an 
aversion to water as some of our northern friends, 
who looked upon its use, inside or outside, as the 
enemy of a sound constitution in the one case, and 
the foe of a blooming complexion in the other. And 
so it is with many of the lovers of plants ; they won¬ 
der how they look so sickly; the leaves may he co¬ 
vered with dust, hut they do not think that is the 
cause. They may he aware of the importance of un¬ 
obstructed perspiration from the skin, and free res¬ 
piration by means of the lungs, so far as their own 
health is concerned, but they have never been led to 
think that the leaves of plants constitute alike organs 
of respiration and perspiration, digestion and nutri¬ 
tion, inspiring and respiring gases and air, and ab¬ 
sorbing and exhaling aqueous vapour. Plants would 
be better attended to, and gardening better done, 
could it be impressed upon the public mind that in 
many respects the vegetable resembled the animal. 
Hence to expect health in plants, with their leaves 
encrusted with dust, is just as wise as to expect 
health in your own body, with your skin varnished 
to prevent perspiration; or, your lungs so treated as 
to keep them, and the blood passing through them, 
from atmospheric influence. The leaf of a plant is 
amply supplied with orifices for vapour, and sto- 
mates, or openings for air. So small are they that 
thousands exist in an inch. In many cases they 
exist on both sides of the leaf; in general, they are 
chiefly found on the under side, as plates of metal 
applied there have condensed vapour when none was 
condensed upon the upper side. In aquatic plants, 
whose leaves rest on the water, the orifices for trans¬ 
piration exist only on the upper surface. The dif¬ 
ference of plants in this respect, and the extreme 
variety in the skin or epidermis of the leaves, is a 
study well worthy the attention of the amateur. The 
more examined, it will the more be found that in 
wisdom all were formed. Even hairs on the leaves 
aud stems are considered to be both absorbents and 
protectors: they will often be found bending over 
the skin of the leaf during the day, and standing up¬ 
right at night; even this cannot be done when 
clogged up with dust. 
In alluding to these matters, all we wish at present 
to inculcate is, to keep the leaves and stems of your 
plants scrupulously clean ; otherwise, we might have 
enforced the same advice by a lengthy reference to 
the beneficial effect of a healthy vegetation in puri¬ 
fying our atmosphere, and the wondrous reciprocal 
connexion existing between the vegetable and the 
animal—neither of them having the power to say to 
the other, “ I have no need of thee !” the vegetable 
furnishing food to eat, and oxygen, or vital air to in¬ 
hale, by the animal; while the animal, by its decom- 
position when dead, and by its excretions and the 
exhaling of carbonic acid gas when alive, furnishes 
nourishment to the vegetable. 
Thus, plants with dusty leaves can neither be 
healthy themselves nor the means of promoting the 
health or the cheerfulness of their possessors. Would 
you experience something of the same pleasurable 
exhilaration of spirits, when, after a cloudy morning, 
the sun bursts in splendour upon the clean deep 
green foliage of the woodland, and thus excited you 
by the free liberation of oxygen or vital air that was 
thus accomplished?—then your plants must be clean, 
and the medium through which the sun reaches them 
clear and transparent. Resolve to neglect all this, 
then you had better discard your plants at once. 
Their neglected condition is not only a satire upon 
gardening, but furnishes to every passer-by, whether 
right or wrong, the means of passing an opinion 
upon the general state of your housekeeping. “ Ah,” 
says one, “ this is all very well. I could manage my 
plants tolerably in summer, when they could stand 
upon the window-sill; and I can clean the pots now, 
which I suppose you consider indispensable. And 
it is an easy matter for my wealthy neighbours (some 
of whom, however, would be none the worse for a 
hint) to keep their plants nice, with the clean stages 
in their greenhouses and beautiful floors of their con¬ 
servatories ; but there, now, what am I to do, when 
my prized plants will soon be all indoors, to enable 
them to perspire and respire, or what we simple 
people would term sweat and breathe, when every 
time I sweep that large room, after the rompings of 
so many children, even when I damp it with leaves 
from the tea-pot, a quantity of dust is sure to settle 
upon them?” In reply: move the plants when you 
sweep the room, or, what will be sooner done, have 
a neat light cloth for covering them during the ope¬ 
ration. If a little dust should, nevertheless, adhere, 
scatter it with a soft hair-brush, such as housemaids 
use; which, however, will chiefly be useful if you 
live in a smoky city. Then, as your plants will, ne¬ 
vertheless, get dingy, take them to the kitchen sink, 
or out of doors on a mild day; wet all the foliage 
either from a syringe or the rose of a waterpot, hold¬ 
ing or placing the plant in such a position that the 
water cannot enter, and so deluge the soil in the pot; 
then wash the leaves with a sponge, and give a 
finishing dredging from the waterpot, and the aspect 
of your plants will amply repay you for the labour. 
After once you have shown them the way, the chil¬ 
dren will manage it all for you, and thus uncon¬ 
sciously they will be acquiring tastes that wi’ 1 accom- 
