THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY 
rule, the nearer plants are kept to the windows in winter 
the better they will thrive; that is to say, when such a 
position would not be too cold for them in severe frost. 
In such a case they should be moved more to the centre 
or the side of the room for security. It is advisable 
to have a small thermometer to regulate these matters. 
11 the heat ranges from 37° to 45°, and onwards to 50°, 
the plants should remain near the window, unless ex¬ 
posed to draughts of air, some 10° or 15 c below freezing, 
from the frequent openings of doors near them. They 
will be safe enough in the same place at night if there 
are only a few degrees of frost out of doors, and there are 
shutters to the window. Whenever there is danger, 
from a severe frost, that the plants in the window 
will descend in temperature below 35°, they should 
be moved to the centre of the room, and in extreme 
cases a cloth should be placed over them there. This 
precaution is more necessary where rooms are kept too 
warm in an evening to be good either for plants or its 
human residents. The higher the temperature of the 
room is kept, the more subject will all. concerned be to 
suffer from cold. If near the cosy fire-place the tem¬ 
perature generally ranges from 50° to 60°, the plants 
near the window will just be in their element, because 
the average there will be about 45° in the evening. 
No directions here will ever supply the want of close 
attention and care of the window gardener. When¬ 
ever it is necessary to remove the plants from the 
window at night, or in extra severe cases during the 
day, care should be taken to submit them to no higher 
temperature than will just keep them safe, as every 
extension of growth in shade is made at the expense of 
the organised matter the plant formerly contained, so 
that merely lengthening in such a case is not addition 
or real growth. In very severe frost a little fire may 
be left in the grate; but with the precautions named 
this will seldom be necessary if the windows are fur¬ 
nished with shutters. 
7. Ventilation. —This is one of the most difficult 
things to manage in winter in sitting-rooms—people 
are rightly so frightened about draughts. Upon the 
whole the plants are likely to be as well off as the 
human residents. They will get a whiff of fresh air 
from crannies in the windows, and from frequent open¬ 
ings of the door during the day, and circulation of 
air will be promoted by the draught in the chimney, 
I the rarefaction being partly supplied by sucking all 
, that can be got through crevices and key-holes. The 
long winter evenings are the periods when plants, 
and men too, suffer most for want of fresh air. In 
a greenhouse, though pretty close at night, the air is 
moister thau in a sitting-room, and purer, because no 
fire has been using up its oxygen. Our own feelings in 
such circumstances would tell us what the plants wanted 
as well as ourselves. Much of the nausea, head-aches, 
l &c., the results of attending crowded assemblies, are 
owiug to our disregarding the lessons which such feel¬ 
ings should teach. I lately attended a missionary meet¬ 
ing, where standing room was out of the question. It 
was a perfect jam. One gentleman, on rising to speak, 
said he always liked to see the candles burn brightly, and 
to have a good view of the faces of his ’audience, and 
recommended the door and windows to be fully opened 
for a few minutes. The pent-up exhalations rushed out 
as from a steam-engine, and every one looked as much as 
to say, “ How comfortable that has made me!” I found 
out afterwards that this gentleman was passionately fond 
of plants, and cultivated them successfully amid many 
drawbacks. In these long winter evenings both we and 
our plants would be much improved by a thorough 
change of the atmosphere around us. Only let the fire 
burn brightly, the doors be all as close as possible, and 
we thus as cosy as cosiness can make us, and, what¬ 
ever our employment, in a few hours we shall become 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, January 6, 1857. 285 | 
hipped and lethargic, and very likely half inclined to be 
drowsy. And what is the antidotal charm, more powerful 
than every attendant of Bacchus, with the chieftain of 
jollity and revelry at their head? Why, simply a good 
whiff of pure, unadulterated air. The gentleman at the j 
meeting knew how to do this most effectually and safely. 
Pull a window down a few inches, open a door ditto, 
and you create a draught that might be dangerous to the 
person near it. Throw the door wide open, if not the 
window, and every one is prepared, and the whole atmo¬ 
sphere is changed* in a few minutes without the dangers 
of draught. In most cases this can be sufficiently 
done without opening the outer door; but if that is j 
necessary, and the air is frosty, the plants should be ! 
screened, so as not to be acted upon at once by it before 
it has been partly warmed. All sudden extremes should 
be avoided. I have already alluded to 
8. Temperature. —The best average may be considered 
45°, allowing a fall of from 5° to 8° at night, and a rise of 
from 5° to 12° during the day. If much below that 
average the plants will neither bloom nor grow freely; 
if much above it the plants will be weak and drawn. 
it. Fish. 
(To be continued.) 
WARDIAN CASES. 
Several correspondents having made inquiries about 
the management of these interesting Liliputian green¬ 
houses, and the last being just received from a fair 
correspondent under the cognomen “Annah,” I will 
try to give a concise essay on the subject. They are 
certainly interesting objects anywhere, but more espe¬ 
cially in large towns and cities. In such positions 
the plants in the close case seem to be sheltered, in a 
great measure, from the deleterious atmosphere, and 
thrive in spite, as it were, of such disadvantageous cir¬ 
cumstances. The notion, however, that generally pre¬ 
vails, that after planting they require no further care, is 
quite fallacious. Common sense would at once point 
out to an observing mind that, if a number of small 
plants are put into a confined space, the air would soon 
become vitiated, the same as it would in a small room 
filled with animals. The plants would then, of necessity, 
become sickly and perish ; and, again, if they did grow 
well, the stronger and larger-growing species would soon 
outgrow the other aud choke them. Mr. Ward, indeed, 
seems to think that no giving of air, in the ordinary 
understanding of the term, is necessary ; but from what 
I have observed in dozens of cases where no air was 
given, the greater part of the plants perished in, at the 
utmost period, a twelvemonth after planting. Many of 
the leaves moulded off, and the plants died in three 
months. Facts are stubborn things. If no air was 
necessary in those close cases why did the plants die? 
On the contrary, small cases, not more than eighteen 
inches wide and as much high, have had the plants in 
them as fresh, green, and healthy as possible for double 
that time; but then there was a contrivance for the 
vitiated air to escape and fresh air to be admitted. It 
may be that in large Wardian cases, such as that figured 
in The Gardeners Magazine of Botany for 1851, at 
page 149, such an air-giving contrivance might not be 
necessary. The larger space, and, consequently, the 
many fissures unavoidable in such a building, would 
admit pure air, and allow sickly, gaseous vapours to 
escape. The author of the report on that house, or case, 
as he pleases to call it, says, “ Open exposure to air is 
very seldom required with the majority of plants, 
whether natives of cold or of hot regions, if their wants 
are duly supplied.” Observe the latter part of the 
sentence, “ if their wants are duly supplied.” Truly 
we should have been glad had the means of supplying 
