ON WINDOW FLORICULTURE. 
105 
is another result of ignorance in the majority of cultivators in 
windows, which is the destruction and death of many a fine plant; 
and that is the belief that when any plant looks sickly it wants 
moisture, and can be restored to health by the application of 
water, and by that only. Acting upon this principle, the plants 
are soused all over, and the mould in the pots soaked with water, 
often cold from the pump, when the plants have a high tempera¬ 
ture ; and of course all those which are not natives of con¬ 
tinually dripping climates are hurt by this injudicious mode of 
treatment. 
Almost the only plants which require a copious and constant 
supply of water at the roots are those which naturally grow in 
water or on quagmires ; and among bulbous plants they are the 
only ones which will not macerate and rot, when the flower and 
leaves of the season are gone, and the bulb is in a state of repose. 
Therefore, without an accurate knowledge of the situations and 
climates in which they thrive naturally the best, no man can be 
a successful cultivator of a varied stock ot window flowers. This, 
indeed, holds true in the case of all cultivators, although many 
of the situations fit for the flowers have been arrived at by trial 
and failure, until something succeeded at the last. 
The first advice which we would, therefore, give to this class of 
cultivators is, to make themselves acquainted with the physical 
geography of plants in the situations naturally most congenial 
to them. This is the simple foundation of the whole ; and without 
an accurate knowledge of it the cultivator gropes on in the dark, 
loses all his choicest flowers, and grows even the more common 
ones very imperfectly. 
To enumerate all the flowers which are fit for window culture, 
to describe the modes of their treatment, and, indeed, to state 
anything but the general principles, would require a volume oi 
some size. We have already pointed out that the extremes oi 
tropical and polar vegetation are quite unfit for this species of 
culture. The same may be said of plants that grow at extreme 
altitudes,—those at the level of the sea, and tnose above or 
near the line of perennial congelation. It is impossible to attend 
to such small matters as the difference oi elevation and aspect in 
towns and other places where window plants are grown ; but they 
are considerable ; and in the case of most plants freedom of air is 
equally so. 
VOL. II. no. v a 
p 
