422 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



A careful examination of the works of scientists, who have done 

 much in experimenting in this subject, and from a little practice of my 

 own, the fact has been disclosed to my entire satisfaction that habitual 

 attempts to grow plants in a greater degree of cold than that in which 

 their life was destroyed at the first attempt, however much prolonged, 

 produced no effect on such as are propagated by buds, grafts, layers or 

 cuttings. The hardiness which is found to exist in plants is innate and 

 inherent in themselves, and appears to consist chiefly in the power of 

 the sap-cells to contract and expand readily, under different degrees ot 

 temperature. One of the peculiarities of the hardiness of vegetable 

 forms is that many of our frost-resisting plants have come to us from 

 warm climates, where they are found in their wild state — such, for in- 

 stance, as the Japan lilies, which, in suitable localities, bloom profusely. 

 In this locality, where there is an average of over forty days during 

 each winter when the glass sinks to zero, and not infrequently to thirty 

 degrees below that point, certain classes of plants which can be 

 artificially protected during severe winter weather, can be cultivated 

 with success as far north as the summer season is sufficiently lengthy 

 to open its flowers or ripen its fruits. Allusion in flowers is made to 

 the rose, and in fruits to the grape, the blackberry, etc. One would 

 suppose that any plant so protected would succeed, but many attempts 

 to cultivate the peach by artificial protection have invariably failed. 



With regard to the hardiness of some cultivated fruits, it must be 

 borne in mind that soil and situation have a good deal to do with the 

 power of the plants to resist cold. Often when the border line of the 

 freezing limit is reached, a well-drained soil and good cultivation will 

 give such robustness to vegetation that the plant defies the icy air 

 which whistles through its branches. As a rule the vegetable kingdom 

 is as much opposed to wet feet as are mothers in regard to their young 

 offspring. It is certainly true that many of our domesticated plants do 

 produce seedlings hardier than their parents, such as the plum, the 

 grape, or the apple, but this after all may be, and probably is, a relation 

 to the original stock, such as the wild vine, the crab, etc., so that after 

 all we must conclude that the weight of testimony is against the theory 

 that plants may be made to resist a greater degree of frost than the 

 original hardiness which exists within themselves when first procured 

 in a wild state. P. E. Bucke. 



