132 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
the brilliant facets of the ice-crystals which cover the plants. For the 
preservation of wall-trees, orchards, trellis-plants and vines, nets, can- 
vas, straw-matting, and dry leaves may be employed with success. For 
the purpose of arresting the progress of the injury received by frozen 
plants, it is necessary to remove the leaves, and cut off, even to the 
quick, all the shoots and branches which bave been affected. This 
operation should be performed with a very sharp instrument close to 
where the bud springs, and a little above, in order that the shoots, pro- 
ducing the eyes which attract the sap from its legitimate course, being 
promptly cicatrized, there is no wound occasioned by the suppression 
of the frozen branches. * 
An able gardener, Mr. Charles Harrison, has given the following 
method of watering peach and nectarine trees to preserve them from the 
effects of frost: Before the sun is up, after a frosty night, if he finds that 
there is any appearance of frost in the bloom or young fruit, he waters 
them thoroughly with cold water from a garden engine; and, even if they 
are discolored, this operation recovers them; provided it be done before 
the sun fails upon them. He has sometimes watered particular parts ot 
the trees more than once in the same morning before he could get entirely 
rid of the effects of the frost. The fact that the operation of watering, 
in counteracting the frost, produces this effect only if it be done before 
the sun comes upon the blossoms or young fruits, seems to be analogous 
to the condition of a frost-bitten joint or limb, which is recovered by the 
application of cold water, but injured, and sometimes destroyed, by 
being brought near the fire, or within the infiuente of sudden warmth. 
Harrison first discovered this method by the following accident: In 
planting some cabbage among some rows of kidney-beans, very early on 
the morning after a frosty night in spring, and before the sun was high 
enough to turn upen the frosted beans, he spilled upon them some of 
the water which he had used in his planting, and, to his surprise, he 
found that the beans immediately began to recover. This method was 
adopted by Thouin in 1806, and has been followed by many other her- 
ticulturists up to the present day. 
Harrison protects his trees from the frost in the month of January by 
branches of broom. These are previously steeped in soap-suds, mixed 
with one-third of urine, for forty-eight hours, to clear them from insects, 
and then they are disposed thinly over the whole tree, and allowed to 
remain only until the tree begins to break into leaf. Nevertheless, his 
success did not depend entirely upon his watering, but a great deal upon 
his pruning and dressing in the following manner: The peach and nec- 
tarine trees are pruned and nailed in December and January, when he 
always takes two-thirds of the young shoots away. In two hand-dress- 
ings, in May and July, he leaves the lowest and weakest shoots for a 
succession in the year following, pinching off the leading and other 
shoots. t 
Mr. James Mean has adopted the following method for preserving fig- 
trees in winter: In autumn, as soon as the leaves are off, the branches are 
unnailed and brought down to the ground, which is opened to the depth 
of nine or ten inches close to the wall. In the trench thus made the 
branches are laid, and covered with a light red sand to the thickness of 
two feet, which is sufficient to exclude all frost. About the middle of 
April the sand is removed; the branches, being then well washed, are 
again nailed to the wail, and never fail to produce a crop. He always 
* Annales de Agriculture Francaise, 1806, vol. xxv, pp. 315-319. 
t Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London, 1818, vol, ii, pp. 13-18. 
