American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
Suppose you have a common cheap table, four feet long and two wide.
Take off the top boards of your table, and with them board the bottom
across tight and firm; then line it with zinc, and you will have a
sort of box or sink on legs. Now make a top of common window-glass
such as you would get for a cucumber-frame; let it be two and a half
feet high, with a ridge-pole like a house, and a slanting roof of glass
resting on this ridge-pole; on one end let there be a door two feet
square.
[Illustration: Fig. 47.]
We have seen a Ward case made in this way, in which the capabilities
for producing ornamental effect were greatly beyond many of the most
elaborate ones of the shops. It was large, and roomy, and cheap. Common
window-sash and glass are not dear, and any man with moderate ingenuity
could fashion such a glass closet for his wife; or a woman, not having
such a husband, can do it herself.
The sink or box part must have in the middle of it a hole of good size
for drainage. In preparing for the reception of plants, first turn a
plant-saucer over this hole, which may otherwise become stopped. Then,
as directed for the other basket, proceed with a layer of broken
charcoal and pot-sherds for drainage, two inches deep, and prepare the
soil as directed above, and add to it some pounded charcoal, or the
scrapings of the charcoal-bin. In short, more or less charcoal and
charcoal-dust is always in order in the treatment of these moist
subjects, as it keeps them from fermenting and growing sour.
Now for filling the case.
Our own native forest-ferns have a period in the winter months when
they cease to grow. They are very particular in asserting their right
to this yearly nap, and will not, on any consideration, grow for you
out of their appointed season.
Nevertheless, we shall tell you what we have tried ourselves, because
greenhouse ferns are expensive, and often great cheats when you have
bought them, and die on your hands in the most reckless and shameless
manner. If you make a Ward case in the spring, your ferns will grow
beautifully in it all summer; and in the autumn, though they stop
growing, and cease to throw out leaves, yet the old leaves will remain
fresh and green till the time for starting the new ones in the spring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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