MALARIA BARS FOR WINDOWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 295, 12 December 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

MALARIA BARS FOR WINDOWS.

Faith in the Sanitary Virtues or the Sunflower Makikg Business fop. Florists.

From the elevated trains in the upper parts of the ciby some very conspicuous boxes of plants may be seen in tho windows of dwellings. Sunflowers of rank growth tower nearly to the tops of the windows. Their roots lie in big boxes of earth, and their blossoms are almost dazzling in bheir extravagant yellowness.

''Are sunflowers coming into vogue as window plants?" a florist was asked. " Neb that I know of," he replied ; " but we have an occasional order for a box of sunflowers for a window, accompanied by a request to mix in a fow other plants that are big acid hardy enough to make some little show among the sunflowers. I was rather surprised when I got the first order of that kind, and was fresh enough tc say something about Oscar Wilde and aesthetics in goneral. You ought to havo seen how tho woman took it. 'No, sir,' she sputtered, '1' ain't s disciple of Oscar. But Uncle E'phriam, out in Connecticut, was always troubled with malaria till Aunt Huidah gob somo sunflowers and planted them under the square-room window, and ho hasn't had n shako since the first year they were set out!' I fixed her up a box of sunflowers, but haven't heard whether the sufferer—whr-ever he or she may be—has recovered from malaria.

" I don't talk about astheticism any more when I get such; an order, but nsually remark that we are-doing'considerable in that line of late for persons who reside where Talarial influences are supposed to prevail. mhx\t> seams to impart) comfort, and I don'b know of anybody who has gob a box of bud-

flowers for a window except for sanibary reasons.

"Seriously," bhe florist continued, "I don't see why a lob of sunflowers growing in a window of an apartment house shouldn't keep off malaria as well as "a bed of sunflowers growing in the yard of a house. A sunflower is no less a sunflower because its roots happen to be growing in a box fifty feeb from the ground. The malaria is a queer disease. If folks could be made to believe that Japanese fans, stuck in the top of their chimneys, would keep ib off, I have no doubb the number of persons who bhink they have it would be greatly reduced.'.'—

" Weekly Sun."