93 THE GARDENER. [March 



point. True, the most successful horticultural practice does not in- 

 variably homologate the teachings of nature, but it does corroborate 

 \vhat we are taught in these nocturnal variations ; and surely it is not 

 necessary, at this era of horticulture, to point out how erroneous is the 

 artificial application in excess of the stimulating power of heat 

 throughout the long hours of darkness of a ]Jritish winter night. The 

 experienced cultivator, at any rate, knows w^ell that such a combination 

 of circumstances is productive only of debility, and the utter want of 

 that stamina in plants which is only attainable under a corresponding 

 amount of light and sunshine, with which we are never favoured in 

 this country during our season of early forcing. 



If plants are kept continuously at a high pitch of excitability by the 

 stimulating agency of heat, irrespective of the variations of day and 

 night — of light and darkness — their whole system becomes impaired ; 

 and nature has provided against such a result, not only by the less 

 sudden variation of summer and winter, rainy reasons and dry ones, 

 Avhen a long season of activity is followed by a long repose, but by 

 the more sudden variation from a high temperature by day with light, 

 to comparative coolness by night with darkness. Were it possible to 

 reverse this order of things for a single month, when plants are in full 

 tide of growth — could we have light and a low temperature, darkness 

 and excessive heat — we should learn a lesson from the appearance of 

 the vegetable world that would impress us with the beneficence and 

 wisdom of Nature's order of things, and w'ould teach us a great and 

 lasting lesson in early forcing if in nought else. 



It is no part of our present intention to enter into the nature and 

 results of the distinct functional operations of plant-life by day and 

 night. Our object, and all that is possible for us, is, to throw out a few 

 hints which we hope may stimulate our young and inexperienced 

 readers to study vegetable physiology — the structure and functions of 

 plants ; and we are not aware that we can direct them to a better 

 authority than Dr Lindley, in his ' Theory of Horticulture.' Suffice it 

 here to say, that in the absence of sunshine at night, there is a cessation 

 in plants of that evaporating and decomposing process by which 

 plant food is perfected and rendered fit for augmenting in a proper 

 manner the growth of plants and trees ; and that all excess of heat at 

 night, in the absence of these processes, which are dependent on light, 

 only tends to gorge the system with an overdose of crude sap, pro- 

 ducing a mere attenuation of imperfect and unfruitful growth, which 

 by day does not bear the strain of sunshine in a manner so as to 

 result in the production of wood and foliage, flowers and fruits, of 

 which plants are capable when subject to that nocturnal repose which 

 is as necessary to plants as it is to animal life. Hence all experienced 



