Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1878 — Cultivating House Plants. [ARTICLE]

Cultivating House Plants.

To those quiet people who pass the burden of their lives in-doors, the culture of house-plants is no less an occuSation than a pleasure; a sunshiny winow filled with them furnishes a daily entertainment and interest to the possessor. Who knows what freakish and foreign flower this strange slip may evolve from its inner consciousness? at what supreme moment the night-bloom-ing cereus may think fit tojinfold its creamy petals or dispense its odors? or the mysterious aloe, with its sword-like leaves, bristlipg as if to protect some hidden treasure, fulfill its purpose? Is there Dot a very appreciable delight in watching the little buds expand, the great calla uncurl indolently? to see the gay lantanas change their hues like the chameleon, the Mexican sage hang out its ragged colors? When a sickly little plant consents to hold up its head and repay one’s care with ever so pale a blossom, isit not as though it smiled thanks? and when we have coaxed a rose to blow, does it not seem as if we had performed a miracle? All our geranium slips are so many very interesting riddles; who can predict in what garments they will appear, whether pink or white, scarlet or cherry, variegated or plain, double or single? Those who truly love flowers will not find it a task to tend and wait upon their caprices; to follow the winter sunshine from room to room, in their service; to remember and shield them from cold snaps stealing into the house, in “the dead middle of the night,” with the stealthy tread of an Indian in ambush; to study their conditions of growth. What a companion an ivy is in the room! how gracefully it adorns the barest walls! It is a picture in itself; it gives to the poorest apartment an air of refinement and elegance. Added to the quiet happiness of administering to house-plants, of watching them grow in grace and stature, of counting their blossoms, enjoying their fragrance, the tender green of their leaves, the exquisite coloring and marking of their petals, the variety in their shapes, x>ne has always a bouquet at hand to send a sick friend, to touch up the family table, to surprise a neighbor. With many the’ culture of plants is an inborn talent. It sometimes seems as if such fortunate people had only to look kindly upon slip or shrub, and it blossomed in response—as if they knew some incantation that would draw the sleeping flowors from their sources, as the lyre of Orpheus drew rocks and trees to follow him.— Harper's Bazar.