428 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 6. 
II. arhnreum down to tlie Gaucasicum; not forgetting 
some of our new Sikkims. 
Amongst the American tribes, too, there are some 
other evergreens which attain a respectable stature 
under proper circumstances: there are Kalinins, some 
Vacciniums, Andromedas, and even tree-like hardy Ericas, 
as arborea, stricta, Mediterranea, and others. Then, 
again, amongst novelties, what nice tilings in the 
Gupressus family—the Thujas, Libocedrus, Sequoia, Ceplia- 
lotaxus, Juniperus, and I do not know bow many more 
fine trees, which adventurous men have rummaged 
almost every clime for. 1 merely name these as sugges¬ 
tions, and in order to point to one fact, which I would 
wish t.o impress on the minds of the owners of suburban 
residences, and it is this;—in proportion as your shrub¬ 
bery is limited, and shelter is requisite, so let such ever¬ 
greens prevail. 
Let it not be thought, however, that I have no taste 
for handsome deciduous shrubs. I at once totally dis¬ 
claim all such partiality. No ; it is because 1 have so 
often witnessed the meagreness of “ the neglected shrub¬ 
bery," chiefly on account of the deciduous things being 
permitted, through negligence, to domineer over ever¬ 
greens of much higher character, and, consequently, of 
less rudeness. All 1 can say is this ; — that after 
furnishing the hack-ground snugly, and keopiug an eye 
on the sky-line, by anticipation, do all you can to get 
introduced a sprinkling of pretty-blooming, deciduous 
shrubs, Roses, or what you will. 
It will be seen that 1 have not kept so close to my 
theme as the title to these remarks would seem to 
suggest. It occurred to me, however, whilst examining 
the subject, that so many neglected shrubberies required 
so much handling with the bill-hook and pruning-knife 
as would warrant the assumption, that chances would 
occur for the introduction of many new or useful things; 
and when they have been thus neglected, there is 
nothing like putting them through a strong ordeal at 
once, especially seeing that on the heels of such an 
operation a thorough cleaning can be effected ; and by 
the course of planting suggested, the shrubs derive most 
important benefit, through the operation being well- 
timed. R. Errington. 
PLANTS IN A BED-ROOM. 
The first person who told me that plants were poison¬ 
ous in a bed-room was Lord Lovat’s housekeeper, at 
Beaufort Castle, in 1821. Her name w T as Amelia 
MePhail. I had a few plants at home at that time 
which I was learning to strike from cuttings, and I did not 
much like the idea of having poison in-doors, although 
none of us knew of it but myself; still, I was loth to 
turn them out. Besides, I knew my father kept mix 
vomica in the house to poisoh dogs with, such as might 
stray about, and kill lambs, or frighten sheep, a'nd no 
harm came to any of us from that kind of poison being 
in the same house. But the following summer one of 
my sisters was taken very ill, and the doctor ordered all 
my plants out of the house, but he could not save her ; 
and I had a lurking suspicion, for a long time, that my 
plants, after all, were the cause of her death. Hence it 
was, that for many years I had a great horror of plants 
being kept in a living room. 
When I was in Edinburgh, I lodged, part of the time, 
with two medical students, who attended the University, 
and the botanical lectures of Dr. Graham. Before we 
parted, I was almost a doctor myself. I learned how 
plants were supposed to poison the air of a bed-room; 
that their leaves sucked in the life-sustaining portion of 
the air (oxygen gas), and gave out “ foul air” (carbonic 
acid); hence the reason why unthinking people took up 
the notion that plants vitiated the air of the room. If 
the quantity of either life-sustaining or foul air which 
75 pot plants could thus destroy, or produce, in twenty- 
four hours, was computed, and found to be so much, the 
self-same quantity of air could be proved to be vitiated 
in ten minutes by an infant three months old, and by a 
full-grown man in two minutes 1 If this bo so, and 
happily there is not the slightest question on the sub¬ 
ject in these days, the most dangerous of all the poisons 
for the air of a bod-room is a full-grown man. 
Although it is quite true that plants do vitiate the air 
of a room to, comparatively, a fractional degree, it is 
equally well ascertained that they consume and destroy 
a very great deal of foul air; and that without foul air, 
such as would kill a man, plants could not be kept alive 
at all. We gardeners know this fact from our every-day 
experience ; we cannot grow plants so well, or so quickly, 
in the sweetest air as in a stinking hotbed. All the 
animal creation vitiate the common air every time each 
one breathes the breath of life, or life-sustaining air ; and 
were it not that all the vegetable kingdom depend on 
this vitiated air for part of their subsistence, and a great 
part, too, this world would have been at an end as soon 
as animals covered the face of the earth. Therefore, 
and without the shadow of a doubt, plants are the best 
purifiers of all the agents that have yet been known 
to cleanse the air of a bed-room, or any other room in a 
house, provided always that such plants are not in bloom, 
or, at least, do not bear bloom with a strong scent. 
The scout of flowers is now almost the only thing 
which defies the art of man to compute by measure or 
weight. Every one must compute the scent by the 
sense of smell, the most varying of our senses; so vary¬ 
ing, indeed, that one could sleep on a bed of Roses, 
another among Syringa, or Magnolia, or Lilac-blossoms, 
and so forth, while a third party could not sit ten 
minutes in a room with a Hyacinth in bloom. I have 
known such an one; and another, who is compelled to 
leave England altogether during the Hay season. But, 
in all this, there is no poison in the smell of these 
flowers; nothing but that some constitutions cannot 
hear them. 
And now for the practical value of this kind of doctor¬ 
ing. I saved more than two hundred good plants in 
my own bed-room during the late frost; there they were, 
; day and night, during five weeks, and I have never been 
j so healthy these thirty years. I seldom went through 
so much without some slight cold, or a little sore throat; 
but the air of the rooms was kept so fresh and so pure 
by the requirements of so many plants crowded to¬ 
gether, that an invalid would certainly have gained 
strength in it during the time. A medical gentleman, 
who likes a chat about flowers, called on me in the 
midst of the frost, and when I heard the announcement 
I began to tremble. He always asks to see my flowers, 
and I thought to myself, 1 shall “ catch it” now, when 
he finds them all over the house. I never asked him if 
he studied in Edinburgh, but I think half the doctors 
in the world go tbero ; but that is not “ here nor there.” 
When I asked him what he thought of my plan, “Not 
much ;” he replied, “ for if all the world knew the value 
of plants so well as you seem to do, our profession 
might take to the plough.” “Well,” said I, “ all the 
world shall know just what you say, and judge between 
us.” 
But I am not quite sure that I would have said any 
thing about it, were it not that Mrs. Robert Moody told 
me, to-day, that Mrs. Brown had lost her Geraniums 
with the frost. Mrs. Brown is fond of plants, and Mr. 
Brown is very fond of her; but they have not been 
married long, only getting towards the ninth month; 
and Mr. Brown vowed that he would not risk the chance, 
or the life—I forget which they told me—of an heir, for 
all the flowers in England; and so the plants could not 
be admitted into his bed-room on that score. And 
