378 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 3, 1857. 
sent management under Mr. Gruneberg’s directions; 
and for such as contemplate heating on Mr. Weeks’ 
plan I would recommeud a personal inspection of the 
whole arrangement, which is very complete, powerful, 
and economical. D. Beaton. 
WINDOW GARDENING FOR SPRING. 
Whatever the general influences and attractions of plants 
and flowers, these never muster in such strength around 
and among our warmest sympathies as when we can call 
them our own, and have with our own hands tended and 
ministered to their wants. We may greatly admire or deeply 
reverence, but we can scarcely love that for which we can do 
nothing. Hence many of our friends spend their happiest 
hours in their garden—not altogether because of visions of 
prospective advantage — not alone because they are thus 
naturally led to think on the kind, the good, and the beau¬ 
tiful, hut also because they feel that they have it in their 
power to do their proteges a favour, and perceive that, so far as 
mere growing existences can express their gratitude, their 
plant friends are not slow to thank them by their improved 
and flourishing appearance. 
In these days of huge gatherings in towns many never 
know the pleasure of turning up the soil, and tending and 
watering plants in a garden; but almost every one has 
windows where plants can be grown inside in pots, vases, 
&c., in winter, and outside and in balconies in summer. If 
an exception exists, it is in the case of those truly wretched 
people who are obliged to herd and huddle in cellars where 
light, so essential to plants as well as human beings, can 
hardly ever find an entrance. Such exceptions will cease to 
exist when, as a community, we are all thoroughly convinced 
that neither physically nor morally can we stand alone, 
uninfluenced and uninfluencing; but that the pestiferous 
miasmas, brooded over and watched in the dark and damp- 
floored cellars, will find their way to the lightsome, carpeted 
parlour. Some of the most enthusiastic, determined gar¬ 
dening has been displayed on leads and in attic windows. 
Even there, as sometimes in elevated regions, the odour of 
flowers is all the sweeter, and their colours more intense 
and pure, from being nearer to the sun, and if sanitary im¬ 
provements continue, from enjoying a purer air, than if they 
were located at the windows of the first floor. In such upper 
rooms are many whose few carefully-tended plants are almost 
the sole unbroken links that hind them in sympathy with 
mankind, and with all that is pure and elevating. Were it 
not a well-known fact that truth has stranger revelations to 
make than have ever been depicted in romance and fiction 
to tickle and amuse a morbid taste, we might ask that pretty 
plant, on whose leaves some pearly tears are dropping, to tell 
us its story, identified as it has become with recollections 
of green fields, a cottage home, the listening to a father’s 
counsels, and the kneeling beside a mother’s knee—memo¬ 
ries these that have nerved to purity of heart and integrity 
of conduct, though trials were numerous and temptations 
strong. Or, if you preferred it, you might listen to that 
bushy, vigorous plant, thriving so nicely in the lidless, 
cracked teapot—and all the better because it was cracked—as it 
told you how the old, decrepit basket-woman that shivered for 
hours at the corner of the street, with scarcely one passenger 
kind enough to notice her wares, felt her deadened sym¬ 
pathies awakened and softened, and her heart more tender 
and beating more kindly for humanity, neglected as she had 
been, whilst she ministered to the wants and feasted on the 
beauties of the last living, growing thing she could call her 
own. In palaces as well as in cottages, in parlours as well 
as in garrets, in villages as well as in cities, plants are fitted 
to exert a beneficial influence, as, unlike mere works of art, 
their tiniest and simplest forms bring us into direct contact 
with the handiwork of the All-wise and the All-good. But 
though benefit and pleasure may be obtained merely by look¬ 
ing on their beauties—and I might be selfish or professional 
enough to wish that such pleasures were far more general, 
by plants taking a higher and more extended place, as mere 
furnishing and ornament, than they have yet done—still I 
think such pleasures will be enhanced in the case of those 
friends who, either from choice or necessity, do almost 
everything themselves for their plants that they require. 
Whether in this I am right or wrong—and I have mentioned 
it for the purpose—that the pleasures not merely of having, 
but of cultivating plants may be generally realised, there can 
be no impropriety in alluding to some of those points which 
may he interesting to all who wish to have plants in their 
windows. 
1st. Are Plants in Rooms promotive of Health and 
Cheerfulness ?—In the case of all living rooms I answer 
in the affirmative. Delicate people complain of headaches 
and sickness from their presence, and will, therefore, h ave them 
excluded, and rightly too. Plants with poweriul odours will 
sometimes produce that effect. I have known ladies that 
could not go near a Jasmine; others that hated Musk ; 
some that would faint at the propinquity of a Heliotrope, 
and others that only approved of Mignonette when not. 
nearer than a furlong. All of us have something peculiar in 
our likes and dislikes. It is rather ill natured to consider 
such peculiarities as mere fid-fad imaginaries. Common 
prudence would say, “ Keep at a distance from whatever 
harms you." In bedrooms that are shut close at night I 
would advise dispensing with flowershaving powerful odours, 
even though agreeable to the olfactory nerves ot the owner. 
If he prefers retaining them it would he advisable to place ■ 
them nearer the floor than the couch on which he reposes, j 
But why not have air in the sleeping room at night, instead 
of shutting it up close, when the weather is at all favourable, 
and thus serve the interests of the occupant and those ot 
the plants at one and the same time ? 
The idea of the unhealthiness of plants in living an I 
sleeping rooms has been suggested by our chemical friends 
demonstrating the influence of vegetation on the atmosphere, 
and the reciprocal action ever going on between the vegetable 
and the animal world. They tell us truly that animals are i 
continually taking oxygen gas from the atmosphere, and 
throwing, by exhaling, carbonic acid gas into it, and that 
from this and other causes, but for living vegetation, the air 
would become impure and unfit for breathing. The solid 
part of plants being chiefly carbon—of which charcoal may 
stand as a familiar type—and every green part of a plant | 
having the power to absorb this carbonic acid gas in the 
atmosphere during light, its quantity is thus lessened, while 
the action of the sunbeam enables the plant to decompose the 
carbonic acid thus received, to retain, add, or assimilate the 
solid matter, the carbon to itself, and to set the other con¬ 
stituent (oxygen) free for the benefit of the animal world. 
Thus it would seem that the nearer we get to healthy 
vegetation the more likely we shall be to get the benefit of j 
this fresh-forming oxygen; but, as if to damp our enthu¬ 
siasm, we are presented with a lesser and a greater drawback 
to our satisfaction. This lesser is, that all unhealthy parts j 
of a plant, yellow leaves, &c., and, what is more painful still, 
all flowers in proportion as their colour recedes from the 
green, vitiate the atmosphere rather than improve it even 
during the day. The second drawback is, that at night, or in • 
darkness or much shade, even healthy plants exhale carbonic 
acid gas and inhale oxygen, and just in proportion to their 
size and powers deteriorate the atmosphere like ourselves, 
and therefore become, especially after twilight, very unde¬ 
sirable neighbours in our dwelling and sleeping rooms. To 
this heavy accusation I reply that, in general, the size of ; 
flowers, in proportion to green leaves in plants grown in | 
rooms, is so small that during the day the advantage greatly 1 
outweighs the disadvantage ; and though undoubtedly plants ' 
do give off carbonic acid gas at night, yet at that time the ! 
rooms are generally at their coolest, and as this gas is some¬ 
thing like three to two heavier than common air, it will, in 
such circumstances, fall to the floor, and only be mingled 1 
with the general atmosphere by the heat and the sunshine ' 
of the following day. Unless the plants were extra numerous 
the absorption of oxygen would not much influence the air 
of the apartment. All or almost all injury might be 
avoided by seeing that the plants were lower than the seat or 
couch of the owner. I believe this the more because dew, 
the condensed moisture in the air near the ground, holds 
much more of this gas in solution in general than common 
water does. 
On the whole, then,unless in the case oi delicate invalids, or 
of plants with very large flowers or having a powerful odour, I 
believe that healthy plants in rooms are decidedly beneficial, 
and promotive alike of cheerfulness and health, and that this is 
