CttLTIVAlTON OF THE DAHLIA. 23l 



ed uninjured, and continued blowing till the middle of Ab- 

 vember, in great beauty. 



It is necessary to observe, that the Village of Mill Hilt, Mill-hill, 

 where I lately resided, is situate upon a high ridge, at the 

 head of two vallies, in which some of the sources of the little 

 brook, called the Brent, arise; and the garden, in which 

 these dahlias were cultivated, is well screened from the wea- 

 ther by high trees. Being rather above the level at which, 

 the exhalations of the adjacent country pass off, the early 

 autumnal and late spring frosts never reaeh it; at least they 

 have been so mild during the six years I lived there, as never 

 to have cut off cucumber plants, potatoes, french beans, and 

 troperolums, till long after others of the same species had 

 been killed in the vallies. In hoar frosts, the top of Harrow 

 Hill, Bushy Heath, Ehlrcc, and Totlcridge, are commonly 

 seen green, or illuminated by the sun, when the rest of the 

 neighbourhood is white as snow, or obscured in a sea of fog* 

 The medium temperature of this delightful spot, and 1 be- pfigh grounds 

 lieve of most other grounds equally elevated, during the warmer in win- 

 mouths of December, January aud February is considerably va lleys, 

 milder than in any valley, perhaps never less than from 1 to 

 5 (hgrees : in extremely severe frosts, the difference is still 

 more apparent, so that when the cold has been down to 12 

 and 9 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer in London, it 

 has only been 20 and Vo there; and this is likewise proved 

 by the more tender exotic plants still remaining in the gar- 

 den, some of them G'O and 70 years old. The common 

 broad leaved myrtle against a wall there quickly grows to 

 (i feet in height without any covering, an<t the cupressus 

 sempervirens, as well as arbutus unedo, are rarely scorch- 

 ed, and never killed. The summer temperature of but cooler in 

 Mill Hill, on the contrary, is as much cooler than that summer - 

 of the vallies, as it3 winter temperature is milder ; and 

 it suffers greatly in dry seasons from the want o! those dews, 

 which refresh the latter ; both circumstances unfavourable 

 to the suecess of such perennial plants as the dahlias : 

 nevertheless they have apparently succeeded better here 

 than in any other place. No intelligent gardener, after 

 reading the foregoing detail, can be at "a loss how to treat 

 .these plants, nor i* there the smallest doubt, that by check- 

 ing 



