H ouse and Garden 
“A garden of pleasant avenues, walks, Fruits, 
Flowers, grots and other Branches springing from it, 
well composed, is the only compleat and permanent 
inanimate object of delight the world affords, ever 
complying with our various and mutable minds, 
feeding us, and supplying our Fancies with daily 
novels. All curious pieces of architecture, Limning, 
Painting, or whatever else that seem pleasant to the 
eye and other senses at first sight or apprehension, 
at length become dull by too long acquaintance with 
them. But the pleasures of a garden are every day 
renewed with the approaching Aurora.” 
Has the world changed since the days of Master 
John Woolridge ? He writes: “In the country, in 
many places, Ignorance, Sloth, and Envy, are great 
impediments to the way of Improvement; no country 
in the world being without some persons fraught with 
lazy, envious Humours. Therefore we cannot he 
exempt from them, the best of Airs naturally nourish¬ 
ing the worst of animals, and the best of gardens 
naturally producing the worst weeds. 
“As for slothful men, they are the greatest burthen 
to themselves; but envious men, although they are 
so great an affliction to themselves, yet are they also 
the worst neighbours to good Husbandry, not only 
to the constant depraving the endeavours and in¬ 
genuity of the industrious, but using all means they 
can to impede or prevent their prosperity. Like 
unto him that poisoned the Flowers in his own gar¬ 
den, because his neighbour’s Bees should get no 
more Honey from them.” 
With the wise saws of Master Woolridge wi will 
close our books, and look out upon the world of 
Nature clad in its wintry covering. The snow 
has ceased to fall, and the sun is shining brightly 
upon the trees decked with glistening whiteness. 
“Now is the time 
To visit Nature in her grand attire,” 
as the old Scottish poet Grahame in his “Sabbath” 
manfully asserts. The robin is waiting for his 
crumbs, and all the tiny fluff's of feathered life are 
all expectant. Soon the reign of your tyrant winter 
will be over; soon the sun will bring us back our 
flowers, which delight us more than even a whole 
shelf of gardening books. 
WINDOW AND VERANDA BOXES 
HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL WITH THEM 
By Eben E. Rexford 
\\ 7 "HEN a window-box, or what amounts to the 
* ^ same thing, the flower-box in which we 
attempt to grow a few flowers each season, on our 
verandas and porches, is a success, it gives us a 
great amount of pleasure, because, as a general 
thing, if we are unfortunate enough to be kept 
prisoners in the city during the season, it must be 
our substitute for a garden. But when, on the other 
hand, it turns out a failure we are likely to lose faith 
in the possibilities of flower-culture under such con¬ 
ditions, and declare that all window-boxes are “snares 
and delusions.” And it is an easy matter for us to 
cite scores of experiences similar to our own in 
this phase of gardening, for it is a fact that cannot 
be gainsaid, that nine-tenths of the window-boxes 
one sees, when going along the street, are sorry 
failures. At first, they seem likely to develop into 
something attractive, but after a little they come to a 
stand-still, and presently they are in “the sere-and- 
yellow-leaf” stage of their existence and soon we 
see them no more. The discouraged owner has 
kindly and regretfully consigned them to the oblivion 
of the hack-yard. 
“There are such things as beautiful window- 
boxes,” said a friend to me, last season, after lament¬ 
ing over her third season of failure. “I know there 
are, because I have seen them. And to see them was 
to want to have something like them. But judging 
from the experience of myself, and of my friends, 
there must be a knack about them which we poor 
amateurs cannot attain. The grower of a really 
pretty window-box is, like the poet, born, not made, 
I conclude.” 
My friend was right about it. There is a “knack” 
to the successful culture of flowers in the window- 
box. But, fortunately, it is a knack anyone can 
easily acquire. It consists in using a pailful of water 
where a quart has been considered sufficient. 
I wonder if those who have attempted to grow 
fine plants in boxes at the window, and on the 
veranda, have ever thought about the rapid evapora¬ 
tion which must take place from a box exposed as 
most of them are ? The air can get to it at all sides, 
and from below. The wind also, and, as a natural 
consequence what moisture there is in the soil is 
parted with so rapidly that, before you know it, it 
