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mulching is simply a device to prevent the radiation of heat from 
the earth, and so keep warmth at the roots ; mulchings simply 
act like great coats, there is no real heat in either, but the 
mulching prevents the escape of the heat of the earth just as the 
great coat prevents the escape of the heat of the body. I use 
many devices to serve as mulchings or protections, boards, slates, old 
casements, bell-glasses, flower pots, &c., &c., and it is wonderful how 
very little will suffice. You may see that by the way in which even 
in severe frosts the ground is often soft under trees and shrubs, 
and in early autumn you may sometimes see every blade of grass 
covered with cold dew, while there is none on the plantains and 
daisies. The flat leaves though comparatively small are enough 
to prevent the radiation of heat and so prevent the condensation 
which produces the dew ; but the readiest example is nature’s 
own beautiful covering of snow. When the snow lies deep, and 
the weather is cold, you may send a stick through a thick coating 
of ice, or frozen snow at the top, but below the snow the stick 
will go into soft ground ; and even when the weather is cold and 
there is no sun, the snow is melted from beneath by the warmth 
of the earth. In America a good protection against frost is found 
in brown paper steeped in sulphuric acid and made tough and 
waterproof, and a newspaper spread over a plant when frost is 
expected is often quite sufficient to protect it. 
I must say something on the autumnal tints of this year ; they 
were very late and very poor. In my own garden I could 
scarcely see a single specimen that was well coloured, and in 
many cases the leaves fell green, or just browned; and in some 
cases they did not fall at all. This poverty of tints was not at all 
confined to Bitton. We have in this neighbourhood two places 
in which very extensive planting has been carried out with a 
special view to beauty of Autumnal tints, Tortworth and Weston 
Birt. At Tortworth the trees were very poorly tinted, and the 
gardener at Weston Birt reported to me that it was the same 
_ there ; and I have in my garden a shrub given to me by the late 
