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long as Great Britain continues to be an island washed by the 
Gulf Stream, and forming part of the Globe which travels round 
the Sun in the same course that it does now. 
So much for the weather of the year; I now come to the 
question, what have been the results in the garden of the great 
frost, and what are its lessons? Whether the frost was exceptional 
or not it was very severe and very prolonged, and every gardener 
must have watched its results with anxiety. Certainly I did, and 
the thing that has struck me most forcibly is the very small 
injury that has resulted from it. Of course I had losses, and 
severe losses, and it may be well to name a few. [I lost nearly all 
my Kniphofias and Cisti, and when I have said that I have 
exhausted my list of total losses. But among all plants, and 
especially among the shrubs, there was great disfigurement ; there 
- was a loss of many years’ growth, and in many cases plants were 
killed to the ground. But there were some very curious 
exceptions. I have a fine specimen of the Californian Bay 
(Umbellularia Californica) ; it grows in a sheltered place, near my 
entrance porch, but in the winter of 1880-1, after standing 
uninjured for many years, it was killed to the ground, and was 
apparently so lifeless that many advised me to grub it up; but I 
was patient with it, and after two years it showed signs of healthy 
life, and is now 10 or 12 feet high, and during this winter scarcely 
a leaf was injured. All the Bamboos not only survived without 
injury, but seemed even to have acquired an increase of strength 
and vigour. Most of the New Zealand and South American 
plants, which we grow as hardy plants, but which are all more or 
less doubtful, stood the cold well; the Palms were very little 
injured ; the Myrtles survived but had a hard fight for life ; and 
even such tender things as the Jalap, the Rhyncospermums, 
Solanum Jasminoides and Penstemon Cordifoliwm were very little 
hurt. The curious thing is that in former bad winters, and in 
many winters which by comparison might be called mild winters, 
all these plants were very much more injured, and their escape 
