Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1876 — Hygiene of Plants. [ARTICLE]

Hygiene of Plants.

An article in the American Naturalist on the “ Hygiene of Plants” commends the wholesome effect of growing vegetation in living-rooms. It asserts, with reason, that, if forests purify the air about them, a group of plants in the house will do the same. It remarks that “ Many gaseous and other substances affect animals and plants in a similar manner ; and, in manv cases, an atmosphere in which one will not thrive is hurtful to the other. Many injurious gases that are too often found in our dwellings affect plants even more readily than they do man, so that, to a certain extent, plants become tests of the air we breathe; and, when it is found that plants will not grow in a room because of gas from chandelier or furnace, it is surely true that such rooms are unfit for man’s occupation, and that they cannot be used without certain injury to the health. In green-houses, where a large number of plants are shut up in a small amount of air, it is true that the amount of carbonic acid is, even at night, less than outside. Florists, who spend much of their, time in greenhouses, are, as a class, unusually healthy; and sometimes these people sleep for weeks in the greenhouse, with not the least evil effect. Physicians who have had much experience among florists have uniformly testified to their' general robustness. It is also a, well known fact that asthmatic persons often find great relief as they enter a C -house and breathe its air; even whose complaint prevents comfortable rest elsewhere find little or no trouble in sleeping in a green house. ’ ’