66 THE EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE FROST OF THE 



genial seasons. That of winter 1874-75, though less severe, was 

 intense enough to render it a season worthy of being chronicled 

 and recorded amongst the annals of remarkable winters in most 

 agricultural and horticultural periodicals ; while the frost and 

 cold of 1878-79 are quite recent in our 'memory, and from 

 the effects of which, still quite A^isible, the w^oodlands and 

 plantations throughout the country, and especially in the lower 

 lying localities, w^ere in no hardy condition of health or robust 

 vigour to enable them to encounter with impunity the extreme 

 bitterness and intense frost of another recurring winter, so un- 

 mistakeably to be recorded as " memorable " in severity in some 

 districts, as that of the past winter of 1879-80. The effects 

 produced in consequence thereof upon trees and shrubs in many 

 localities have been very marked and injurious. Many of the 

 results of the frost are still latent, and are only now developing 

 themselves, while others have already been apparent during the 

 spring and summer, and w^arrant the Society in calling for a 

 record of the casualties which have been observed, and of the 

 injuries inflicted generally on trees and shrubs throughout the 

 country, so far as lias been accurately ascertained., and recorded. 

 We have already stated that to the debilitated condition of 

 many trees and shrubs in various situations, resulting from the 

 unwonted severity of the, previous winter of 1878-79, from 

 which they had not had time to recover, much of the damage 

 done in 1879-80 must be ascribed. At all events the injuries 

 inflicted last winter w-ere considerablv increased from that 

 cause, coupled with the unfortunate circumstance that the 

 summer of 1879 w^as so ungenial and sunless that the weakened 

 and shattered dislocations of all vegetable organisms which had 

 suffered from the severity of the previous winter had no oppor- 

 tunity of developing their recuperative powers or ripening their 

 young shoots and growths sufficiently to undergo a second 

 ordeal, such as that to which the weather of December 1879 

 subjected them. There is no doubt that we cannot by any pro- 

 cess of acclimatisation render any plant of a different climatal 

 condition of natural habitat " frost-proof " in this country : 

 although, under otherwise favourable relations of circumstance, 

 we sometimes find trees and shrubs in Britain withstanding 

 lower air temperatures than they would usually be subjected to 

 in their native countries ; still, all vegetable organisms — more 

 than animal — are peculiarly liable to suffer in more or less 

 degree from relatively slight deviations of both heat and cold ; 

 and while heat above the ordinary degree of temperature natural 

 to trees and shrubs when removed from their native habitats 

 would eventually kill them, the results so ]3roduced are slow, 

 indeed, and protracted, as compared with the corresponding 

 effects of undue cold. 



