332 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Now there is scarcely a person of experience in cold countries but lias seen 

 trees split from the top to the bottom by frost. If such persons still believe 

 that "sap does not freeze," it ought at once to suggest that they understand 

 by that, something different from what the one understands who calls attention 

 to the split trees. 



Now what is really meant is that the sap in living healthy cells does not 

 freeze. If it did, every tree in Massachusetts would be as surely bound to split 

 as the "row of Lime trees on Boston Common." A hundred bottles of water 

 set on "Boston Common" would all split if one did. Frost knows no such 

 favoritism as smiting one row of bottles and letting all the rest alone. The 

 action of frost is always uniform under equal circumstances. But in a tree 

 only a few outer rows of the woody circles contain living cells. All the interior 

 mass of wood in a tree is simply dead vegetable matter. There is no reason 

 that we know why crude liquids taken into dead vegetable matter should not 

 freeze, and, when it freezes, it will expand. Many persons have seen ice in 

 small spaces found in the interior of trees cut in the winter season. This dead 

 matter allows of some expansion, and the little moisture it contains may freeze 

 without any perceptible effect on the whole body of the tree. But if the 

 interior happens to be spongy, as is very likely to be the case with old Lime 

 trees, and a great deal of water happened to be stored therein, we know of no 

 reason why it should not freeze, and the trunk burst just as readily as it would 

 in a bottle. 



But all this is a very different question to that of the freezing of the sap in 

 living cells, and for the cells to still continue thereafter to possess vital func- 

 tions. — Gardener 's Monthly. 



TRANSPLANTING BY NIGHT. 



A gentleman wanting to ascertain the effect of transplanting by night instead 

 of by day, made an experiment, with the following results : 



He transplanted ten cherry trees while in bloom, commencing at four o'clock 

 in the afternoon. Those transplanted during daylight shed their blossoms, 

 producing little or no fruit, while those transplanted in the dark maintained 

 their condition fully. He did the same with ten dwarf trees after the fruit 

 was one-third grown. Those transplanted during the day shed their fruit; 

 those transplanted during the night perfected the crop and showed no injury 

 from having been removed. With each of these he removed some earth with 

 the roots. The incident is fully vouched for, and if a few similar experiments 

 produce a like result, it will be a strong argument to horticulturists, etc., to do 

 such work at night. — Indiana Farmer. 



ORCHARDS AND GARDENS IN VALLEYS. 



Most of our gardens, from necessity or from choice, have hitherto been 

 made in the valleys and plains, where, however, they are much more liable to 

 suffer from the cold and damp of winter than on the hills and slopes. In our 

 country the high grounds have never been used for gardening purposes to any- 

 thing like the extent they deserve. The fact that a few hundred feet elevation 

 often saves one from the destroying effect of spring frosts, is of enormous im- 



