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survived, and it would puzzle anyone to say whether for the 
future they should be ranked as hardy or tender. The instance 
I have just cited of Senecio Greyi is a case in point, and there were 
many such. In my own garden the New Zealand Veronica 
Traversi was injured but not killed; at Kew every plant was 
killed, while on the high land of Caversham, not very far from 
Kew, I saw many large bushes with not a leaf injured. An old 
vigorous plant of the Indigofera is probably quite dead, though I 
am not sure of it, but seedlings near it an inch or two high are 
uninjured, and it was just the same with Huphorbia Characias, 
and a strong plant of Aristotelia was quite killed, while a few feet 
away a half-struck cutting in the open ground lived and has heen 
a flourishing bush. Another puzzle was this. Several shrubs put 
out good shoots but soon died entirely ; and in that case I fancy that 
the shoots were living upon some reserve store of sap but the roots 
were dead and the supply could not be kept up. 
And besides these puzzles the frost brought with it some 
pleasures, and some practical lessons. It is surely something to 
have seen the very worst winter that most of us are likely to see ; 
something to be able to feel that whatever discomforts from the 
weather are in store for us we have left the worst behind. And 
it was a real pleasure when the frost once completely broke up, 
and the flowers began to come again, to see day by day the 
reappearance of some favourite of whose life you felt you had good 
reason to despair. This reappearance of lost plants went on all 
through the year, even to the end of October, and I believe it is 
not yet at an end. I shall not be surprised to see next year many 
plants again in their usual places, of which there have been no 
signs this year. 
Another lesson is not altogether a new one ; but I have had 
additional proofs to my old belief that the grand thing to provide, 
if we want to ensure the lives of tender plants, is to do all we can 
in keeping warmth at the roots. I consider mine a warm soil, 
and to that I largely ascribe my success in growing many plants 
