130 Effects of Frosl on Dormant Vegetation. [Marcli, 



[For the Cincinnatns. 



S^^e Effects 0f ^xoBt on Jlormant ^tgctaiiun. 



[The following excellent article presents to the notice of our readers some 

 striking thoughts upon a subject which, perhaps from its being a subject so 

 common to our observation, has received but little attention from scientific 

 writers. And, while we are not prepared to adopt all the views here presented, 

 in their full extent, we would, nevertheless, commend them to the attention of 

 readers and thinkers, with a hope that an interest in the subject may result in 

 furnishing to the public a greater collection of authentic facts for the guidance 

 of science in the consideration of the questions involved. The writer is a gentle- 

 man of fine scientific attainments, and presents his views in a clear and agreeable 

 stj'^le. — Eds.] 



The extreme, andj in this region, entirely unprecedented severity of the 

 weather, has spread alarm among all our horticulturists ; the prevailing 

 opinion among them being that by the effects of the long-continued hard 

 frosts, not only are the prospects for fruit the coming summer entirely 

 destroyed, but that a great majority of the trees and vines themselves 

 are killed. To one accustomed to notice the effects, or rather the non- 

 effects, of frost on vegetation in a more northern latitude, these fears 

 seem, in a measure, groundless. 



This subject has not met with tbe attention from practical horticul- 

 turists which it deserves. The results of many experiments and obser- 

 vations made by scientific men on this point, have been laid before the 

 public, but they are not generally known and have scarcely been noticed 

 in popular works on Botany, or the cotemporary Agricultural or Horti- 

 cultural Magazines. It seems to me that this is a fitting time to call 

 tbe attention of prs^ctical men, through the medium of your periodical, 

 to this subject, so as to induce them either by committees of their societies, 

 or as individuals, to institute such experiments and take note of such 

 phenomena, as will tend to illustrate the effects of freezing and thawing 

 on vegetable life. I will therefore endeavor in as brief a manner as 

 possible, to notice some of the experiments and observations that have 

 "been made, and such as have come under my own cognizance. 



Among the first notices of these phenomena, are those of Mr. John 

 Hunter, presented to the Eoyal Society of London, in 1775 and 1778, in 

 his article on the " Heat of Animals and Vegetables." From his experi- 

 ments on vegetables, he concludes that a tree can not be frozen until life 

 is extinct; that as long as the living principle remains, sufficient caloric 

 is generated to resist the action of frost : consequently every tree that 



