HOUSE PLANTS AND FLOWERS

Few things are necessary for the successful cultivation of house plants. A patient, untiring spirit is most important. The other requisites are plenty of sunlight, fresh air, and water when they need it It is better to give a good supply of water when indicated by drooping leaves, than to give a little at a time often. Never leave pots to set in water in saucers except the calla lily. To repot, turn plant upside down on the left hand, rap pot sharply with stick ; this will loosen it from the ball of earth ; lift it off and place the plant in a pot two sizes larger, or in the ground. Do not have the soil too rich with manure, but well mixed, and composed of sod-soil, wild or leaf mould, and well rotted stable manure. Cut plants back pretty closely when you change them, and they will thrive better afterwards. "Water well at first, and then only moisten slightly until they begin to grow. A good rule for watering plants is once a week in winter when the weather is mild, or when it has moderated have a gallon watering-can filled with blood-warm water, stir in a tea-spoon of aqua ammonia, and as you set the plants in a convenient place, pour in pot a plentiful supply of this warm water, and after this, sprinkle well with warm water without ammonia. In summer two or three times a week is the rule. Ivies need large pots, and should be repotted every year in the summer time. .

A good way to start slips is to partly break off the slip, but do not entirely sever it from the parent stock, leaving it hang- ing for ten or twelve days ; then remove, and plant in a box of half sand or brick dust and half leaf mould, and it will be well rooted in a week. Do not water too freely, or the slip will

House Plants and Flowers.

rot. This is better for both slip and plant, as the slip will get nourishment from the plant while healing over, and its remo- val will not weaken the plant so much.

Hyacinths are very attractive flowers for window gardening, and at the same time require very little care or trouble. Get the bulbs in the fall before frost, and keep in a cool place until December, then plant each one in a four -inch pot with soil one-fourth sand, one-fourth well rotted manure, one-fourth gar- den or sod soil, and one-fourth broken bits of moss and leaf mould ; water thoroughly at first, and set in dark closet until the first of January, then bring to light and give plenty of water. A very good way is to set half a dozen or more pots in a large dripping pan, pour hot (not boiling) water in the pan and let stand for one hour. After they are done blooming let them dry out gradually. They will not bloom the second season as well as the first.

To Keep Plants at Night Without a Fire. — Have made of wood or zinc, a tray about four inches deep, with a handle on either end, water tight ; paint it outside and in ; put in each corner a post as high as the tallest of your plants, and it is ready for use. Arrange your flower pots in it, and fill between them with sawdust; this absorbs the moisture falling from the plants when you water them and retains the warmth acquired during the day, keeping the temperature of the roots even. When you retire at night spread over the posts a blanket or shawl, and there is no danger of freezing. The tray may be placed on a stand or table and easily moved about.

Flowers for the Table. — A very beautiful way to arrange flowers is to use tin forms, filled with water or sand, made in any desired shape, such as crosses, circles, half-circles, trian- gles, etc. They are made easily by any tinner, and should be about one inch deep. Tiny forms of tin, in the shape of the letters of the alphabet, containing the initial letter of the name of the guest, may be placed at the plate to which each is assigned. The flowers may be arranged so as to conceal the tin form if desired.

House Plants and Flowers.

Hanging Baskets. — A new style of hanging basket is made of round maple sticks, about one inch in diameter, eight inches in length at the bottom, increasing to fourteen at the top. In constructing, begin at the bottom and build up, log- cabin fashion; chink the openings with green moss, and line the whole inside with the same. They are easily kept moist, and the plants droop and twine over them very gracefully. A good way to keep the earth moist in a hanging basket without the trouble of taking it down, is to fill a bottle with water and put in two pieces of yarn, leaving one end outside. Suspend the bottle just above the basket, and allow the water to drip: this will keep the earth moist enough for winter, and save a great deal of time and labor. Plant morning-glory seeds in hanging baskets in winter; they grow rapidly and are very pretty.

Window Gardening. — All the varieties of English ivy, the the hoyacarnosa, the passion flower, the jasmine, the pilogyne suavis and begonias are especially suitable for window culture. Very pretty effects may be produced at the cost of a few cents by planting verbenas, morning-glories, cobea scandens and the maurandias in baskets or flower-pots, which may be concealed behind statuary or bronzes. The best fertilizer for them or any other house plants is that afforded by the tea-pot; the cold tea-grounds usually thrown away, if poured as a libation to these household fairies, will produce a miracle of beauty and perfume.

Ivies. — A successful cultivator of ivies feeds them with iron and cod-liver oil, the iron in form of rusty nails mixed into the earth. Another produced a luxurious growth by watering once a week with tobacco-water, making a tea of refuse tobacco leaves and stems, or of coarse tobacco. The water from the washing of fresh beef is also of great benefit to ivies.

To Revive Withering Flowers. — Take them from the vase, throw out the cold water, and replace it with hot water in which you can hardly hold your finger, put in it the flowers immediately; or burn the ends, or throw a little salt in the water. The effect is wonderful.

House Plants and Flowers.

Warm Water. — Plants will thrive much better if warm water is used upon them instead of cold. If every saucer is filled with boiling water every morning it will add to the lux- uriance of the plant, and frequently no other moisture will be needed for several days ; tea leaves can also be added in small quantities to the soil of the pots. Ivies are always beautified by such an application, and it is an excellent thing to wet a sponge in tea and moisten the leaves with it. Wax plants are especially susceptible to the benefit of warm water applications.

Repotting Plants. — If the roots become potbound, of plants that have been blossoming all winter in the house, it will be- come necessary to repot them in the spring, and the best time to do so will be during the months of April and May. Or, if you wish, you may put them out in the ground, trimming them up, and they will soon sprout again, making nice plants. The branches trimmed off will make good slips and fine blooming fall plants for next autumn.

To Keep Cut Roses Fresh. — Roses, camellias, and all hard- wooded flowers, such as are used for head-dresses, button-hole bouquets, etc., may be kept fresh, and their beauty preserved by the following plan: Cut stems off at right angles, and apply hot sealing-wax to the end of the stem immediately; this prevents the sap flowing downwards, thereby preserving the flower.

To Preserve Flowers in Water. — Mix a little saltpeter or carbonate of soda in water. It will preserve flowers two weeks. Be careful not to put in too much, as it will burn the stems and cause the flowers to turn.

G-rub Worms.— A plant grower of considerable experience tells us that a strong solution of copperas in soap suds water is very invigorating to ornamental shrubs and pear trees. It will also destroy the small grubs that infest the roots of pot plants. Ammonia water of the strength of one tea-spoon of spirits of ammonia to two quarts of water is also a good reme- dy for the white grubs in pot plants, while it is invigorating t0 the growth of the plants.

House Plants and Flowers.

Canary Birds. — Do not keep in a room that is being painted or has odor of new paint. Do not hang over a stove or grate which contains fire. Do not set the cage in a window and shut it down upon it; the draft is injurious. Do not wash cage bottoms, but scrape clean with a knife, and then put on some fresh gravel; the moisture breeds red mites, and is injurious to the bird. Do not keep the birds you intend to breed in the spring together during the winter. Do not keep single birds in a room where others are breeding, or males and females in mating season in the same room in separate cages, as it is like- ly to cause mating fever. Feed canary on rape seed, but no hemp. For diarrhea put a rusty piece of iron in water dish, changing water not oftener than twice a week, and bread boiled in milk as for asthma; boil well in this case, so that when cold it will cut like cheese; give freely with plenty of vegetables.

Moulting is not a disease, yet during this season all birds are more or less sick, and some suffer severely. They require plenty of nourishing food. Worms, insects and fruits to those which eat them ; and to those which live upon dry seeds,bread dipped in milk, fruit and vegetables.

Miscellaneous.

MISCELLANEOUS.

A Cheap Paint. — Take one bushel of unslacked lime and slake it with cold water; when slaked, add to it twenty pounds of Spanish whiting, seventeen pounds of salt and twelve pounds of sugar; strain this mixture through a wire sieve, and it will be fit for use after reducing with cold water; this is intended for the outside of buildings, or where it is exposed to the weather; in order to give a good color, three coats are necessa- ry on brick and two on wood; it may be laid on with a brush, similar to whitewash. Each coat must have sufficient time to dry before the next is applied.

Bandoline for Hair. — One-half tea-spoon quince seed, one spoon water. Dissolve and perfume.

Brandy Peaches. — Pare peaches and lay in a shallow dish. When syrup has formed remove the fruit and put in jars hot. Fill up with best white brandy and seal up carefully.

Cement for Jet. — Use shellack to join, and then smoke the joints to make them black.

Cologne Water. — One quart alcohol, three drachms oil lav- ender, one drachm oil rosemary, three drachms oil bergamot, three drachms essence lemon, three drops oil cinnamon.

Corn Bread. — Two cups Indian meal, one cup flour, two table-spoons brown sugar, two and one-half cups sour milk, one tea-spoon salaratus, one tea spoon salt, one heaping table- spoon lard; beat ten minutes; put in molds, steam one and one-half hours in a steamer, care being taken to keep it tight. When taken out set in oven twenty minutes. — Mrs. Teel.

Miscellaneous.

Cologne Water. — Oil rosemary, one ounce; oil of lavender, one once; oil of bergamot, one ounce; oil of lemon, one ounce; oil of rose, sixteen drops; alcohol, one gallon.

Curd or Cottage Cheese. — Set a gallon or more of clabber- ed milk on the stove hearth or in the oven after cooking a meal, leaving the door open; turn it around frequently, and cut the curd in squares with a knife, stirring gently now and then till about as warm as the finger will bear, and the whey shows all around the curd; pour all into a coarse bag, and hang to drain in a cool place for three or four hours, or over night if made in the evening. When wanted, turn from the bag, chop rather coarse with a knife, and dress with salt, pep- per and sweet cream. Some mash and rub thoroughly with cream; others dress with sugar, cream and a little nutmeg, omitting the salt and pepper. Another way is to chop fine, add salt to taste, work in a very little cream or butter, and mold into round balls.

Dried Scent to Put Into Sachets, or Little Bags, for Drawers. — Half pound of lavender flowers, half ounce of dried thyme, half ounce dried mint, quarter ounce of cloves, quarter ounce of caraway seeds, one ounce of common salt. The lavender flowers must be rubbed from the stalk, the thyme and mint reduced to powder, and the cloves and caraway seed bruised in a mortar. The whole should then be mixed with the salt, which must be well dried before it is used. When the ingredients have been thoroughly mixed, the compound may be put into silk or muslin bags for use.

Golden Honey Recipe. — Put six pounds coffee C sugar and three pounds of pure soft water into a kettle and let them boil eight minutes, then add one pound of pure honey and one-half an ounce of pulverized alum. Mix well, stirring briskly du- ring the operation, and when cool it is ready for use.

To Clean Jewelry.— Any gold jewelry that an immersion in water will not injure, can be beautifully cleaned by shaking it well in a bottle nearly full of warm soap-suds to which a little prepared chalk has been added, and afterwards rinsing it in clear cold water and wiping it on a towel.

Miscellaneous.

Lime Water and Its Uses. — Place a piece of unslaked lime (size is immaterial, as the water will take up only a certain quantity) in a perfectly clean bottle, and fill with cold water; keep corked in a cellar or a cool, dark place; it is ready for use in a few minutes, and the clear lime-water may be used whenever it is needed. When the water is poured off, add more; this may be done three or four times, after which some new lime must be used as at first. A tea-spoon in a cup of milk is a remedy for children's summer complaint; also for acidity of the stomach ; when added to milk it has no unpleas- ant taste. When put into milk that would otherwise curdle when heated, it prevents its curdling, so that it can be used for puddings and pies. A small quantity of it will prevent the "turning" of cream and milk. It also sweetens and purifies bottles which have contained milk. Some add a cupful to a sponge of bread to prevent it from souring.

Milk of Roses. — Put into a small bottle two ounces of rose water, one tea-spoon of oil of sweet almonds,ten drops of oil of tar. Shake the bottle until the whole is combined. A beauti- ful cosmetic, to be applied with the corner of a towel, or a cam- bric handkerchief, after the morning's ablution.

Queen Bess Complexion Wash. — Put in a vial one drachm of benzoin gum in powder, one drachm nutmeg oil, six drops of orange-blossom tea, or apple blossoms put in a half- pint of rain water and boiled down to one tea-spoon and strained, one one pint of sherry wine. Bathe the face morning and night; will remove all flesh-worms and freckles and give a beautiful complexion. Or, put one ounce of powdered gum of benzoin in a pint of whisky ; to use put in water in wash-bowl till it is milky.