488 THE GARDENER. [Nov. 



When from continued frost it becomes necessary to keep the glass 

 closely covered up for many days at a time, and especially if the 

 temperature in the pit should recede below the freezing point, the 

 great error into which many fall is to uncover the plants immediately 

 the weather changes to a thaw. This sudden uncovering to light 

 causes such a reaction as is ten times more damaging than a few 

 degrees of frost. Plants are living things, possessing all the sensi- 

 bilities of the most perfect and delicate organisms, and are as suscep- 

 tible of injury from sudden changes as is the animal frame. Sudden 

 change should not therefore be produced ; for, if they are affected with 

 frost, a too sudden thaw ruptures their tissues, and rottenness ensues. 

 Do not hastily remove the covering nor at once, but some time 

 after thaw sets in, and by degrees, and so allow the frost to creep grad- 

 ually out as it crept in. This is acting on the same principle practised 

 by the cook in thawing her Cabbage slowly in water, instead of hastily 

 in warm water. In the one case the process is so gradual that the 

 vegetable tissue does not suffer ; in the other case it experiences such 

 a rupture that the wholesome vegetable soon becomes poisonous. 



The successful wintering of tender plants, whether in cold frames or 

 in hothouses, depends very much on the way they are managed in 

 summer and autumn. It can easily be understood how any tropical 

 plant, be it Orchid or any other stove plant or Pine-Apple, which has 

 been grown all summer in a temperature that is too high, and with too 

 little air and too much shade, becomes so tender as to render it not 

 safe in a temperature where one differently treated in summer would 

 not only be safe, but in the best possible keeping ; so that in the one 

 case there is not only an injurious waste of coal in summer, but there 

 is also, from the flabby immaturity of growth thereby produced, a 

 necessity for the same waste in winter also. Let A^andas, for instance, 

 be grown with a proper complement of air and light, and a less ener- 

 vating heat in summer, and a very small collection will be almost con- 

 stantly in bloom ; while one similarly treated will yield a comparatively 

 small portion of bloom spikes, and be more like a Leek in the flabbi- 

 ness of its foliage. The same principle of culture applies to many 

 other plants of the most costly description ; and we shall be glad if 

 these remarks lead our correspondents to give their views and exper- 

 ience of this subject. 



"WINTER BEDDIWG. 



There are now so many plants which are quite hardy, used for effect 

 in summer bedding, that it is worth while to consider how they may 

 be so combined with the tender plants in summer that they may 



