Do not water seeds or seedlings with water that is colder than the soil, and in summer do not water until the evening. If the watering of very small seeds is necessary, stand the pans or boxes in a shallow vessel of water for an hour.
For watering seedlings use a vaporiser, or dip a hair brush in water, shake off most of the fluid, and then, while holding the brush over the plants draw the hand along the bristles several times.
When the seedlings are up, loosen the soil around them very gently.
A Window Box.—There are not many forms of gardening that are so pleasant as that of having a window box. There need be no bearing of the heat and burden of the day, no laborious double digging, no tedious weeding, no back-aching hoeing, no hard days with the wheelbarrow. The window box, too, is not merely a fine weather friend. As you sit in your room upon a rainy day it is at the window beside you, and if your window is open the scent from the flowers comes in with every breeze. If you have a succession of window-boxes you can have a blaze of flowers upon your window sill at most seasons of the year.
The box need not be made elaborately, and though some people do give themselves much trouble yet flowers look as well or even better in such a roughly made box painted green as most boys can make out of a packing case bought for a few coppers from the grocer. You may put plants already in pots in your box, but if you desire to grow flowers in the box itself it will be necessary to fill it with earth. Before this is done holes about the size of a farthing should be bored in the bottom of the box with a brace and bit or with that more homely if unjoiner-like tool the red hot poker. These are to provide drainage. Then there should come between one and two inches of broken stones and upon this the earth. As a rule this may be the ordinary earth from the garden, but it is better to add some coarse sand if you have it, and if in your walks into woods and along the hedges you can secure some leaf mould to put with the earth so much the better. Well decayed manure, odds and ends of mortar and lime which the builders may have left about will all help to provide the flowers with food. There are so many flowers that look well in window-boxes that no complete list can be given. Boys should be ever on the look out to find from the boxes of other people what thrives in these boxes. Each end of the box should be left for climbers that will run up each side of the window, and no better plant for this position can be named than the delicate canary creeper with its pale green leaves and dainty yellow flowers. Nasturtiums, too, look well in this position, and no better border for the front of the box can be imagined than the blue of the beautiful lobelia. Another good climber is convolvulus major. These climbers live for one season only, but one that grows year after year is tropæolum pentaphyllum. In the winter the tubers of this plant are kept in sand and are placed in position each spring. Plants that hang over the front of the box are graceful like single petunias and rock bindweed, and for the rest each boy can make a selection of his favourites for the remaining part of the box. If he likes he may have a number of boxes so that when one has had its day another may be ready. In the spring box he would have crocuses, snowdrops, squills, daffodils and such flowers; then a box with primroses, tulips and hyacinths; and after that a box of pinks, lilies of the valley, anemones, and next the real summer flowers and blooms of autumn. Let the plants be watered regularly with water that is not too cold, and if it be possible use rain water.
CHAPTER XV.
THE BOY AS ARTIST
It would be idle to pretend that it is possible in the chapter of a book, or indeed in a book itself, to give instruction that would make a boy an artist; but most people have the capacity to make sketches, and this is a pleasing and useful training of the eye and hand. The power to bring away a sketch of a scene that has charmed us is one well worth the cultivation, and in the making of the sketch we see many things that would otherwise escape our notice. If a boy finds he has special ability in this direction he should read the lives of artists, visit picture galleries, and join an art class, where he will be conducted through the severe discipline that leads him to drawing the living human form, amusing himself meanwhile by sketching in the lanes and woods, among the mountains, or wherever he happens to be, even if it is in the streets.
Hints on Sketching.—The drawing of a cathedral with all its complexities and innumerable details is governed by the same rules as the drawing of a barn or even of a brick, and these rules are simple, and are easily stated.