G2 EFFECTS OF THE SEVERE WINTER OF 1854-5 UPON 



and diminished foliage the next season. Our northern climate 

 only acts upon it as upon forest trees, in causing it to grow slower 

 than in the southern counties, and generally to stop short of the 

 size which it commonly attains there. Though rabbits and hares 

 do not feed upon this shrub, yet sheep and cattle devour it 

 greedily even during fresh weather, a circumstance which will 

 ever limit its diffusion in open woodlands. 



Ivy, both the common and so-called Irish, were not materially 

 injured, though their leaf and growth were checked for a season 

 considerably. Ivy is not nearly so common or so luxuriant in 

 Germany, not even in the mildest Rhenish districts, as in England. 

 The yew remained unhurt even by fog and hoar-frost ; but in 

 exposed, windy situations, its next year's foliage was very poor. 

 Though our frosts cannot kill it, still its growth is stunted by 

 them in our sheltered hollows, and by our cold winds on higher 

 grounds. The yew is never with us the tree it is in southern 

 England and in Ireland. 



Rhododendron ponticum is unable to bear the dry, continued 

 frosts of even the warmest parts of Germany ; and, probably, 

 if we were to experience two or three successive winters as 

 severe as that of 1854-5, the rhododendron, the holly, the ivy, 

 and the broom, would survive only in a few very warm and well- 

 sheltered spots. The whin would entirely disappear. 



The cedar of Lebanon was considerably scorched by the frosty 

 winds, and lost the tips of its last year's shoots, but I did not see 

 it anywhere killed. Save in a few favoured localities, it exhibits 

 only a stunted growth here in the North, though able to live 

 through our coldest winters. 



The recently-introduced Cedrus deodara is considerably more 

 delicate, although of quicker growth whilst young, and so remark- 

 able for the graceful pendulous growth that distinguishes it. 

 Though a native of the glens of the Himalaya, in North- Western 

 India, up to a severe and snowy climate, it can ill brook our 

 North-of-England winds ; and at Chillingham, and many other 

 places, was almost denuded of its leafage in the spring of 1855, 

 being indeed all but killed. To become a fine tree, it appears to 

 me to require the climate of Paris, or at least that of Kent and 



