HOUSE PLANTS. 81 
room in cold wea;her, care must be taken not to chill the plants 
by leaving them in the cold current. 
The heat of ordinary dwelling-houses is quite enough for such 
plants as we would recommend for general culture in rooms, only, 
in very cold weather, the plants should be removed a little further 
from the windows. The blinds and shutters are usually a suffi¬ 
cient protection during the night; and we may remark that plants 
in rooms are more frequently killed by too much heat than by too 
much cold. 
Spring and autumn are the times of the year at which window 
plants require the greatest attention. It is usual to have the 
plants outside the windows even during the night in the summer 
season, and kept in the house both night and day in the winter 
season. In the intermediate seasons of spring and autumn the 
plants are frequently placed in their summer situation during the 
day, and it is desirable that then they should be placed in their 
winter situation during the night. Our climate is so variable at 
those seasons, that we not only have summer during the day, and 
winter during the night, but whole days of summer and winter 
alternating with each other. Sometimes we have warmer days in 
April than in May or June, and occasionally we have more severe 
frosts in the beginning of September, than any which occur again 
till November is nearly over. Now it is not the absolute heat or 
cold, but the rapidity of the transition from one to the other 
which is injurious to plants, and therefore it is absolutely necessary 
for all such as would have their house plants in the perfection ol 
beauty, to attend to those circumstances. This is more especially 
necessary in towns, where the people are much less interested in 
the changes of the weather, and therefore much less observant of 
them than they are in the country; and we have no doubt that 
more plants are destroyed from want of attention to those varia¬ 
ble periods of the year than from any other cause. It is a safe 
