On inuring Tender Plants io our Climate, 1 35 



tus brought from Bermudas, and the passion-flower, which 

 last had flowered here, and showed a remarkable particula- 

 rity, by rising from the ground near a month sooner if a 

 seedling plant, than if it grew from roots brought from 

 Virginia. 



All these were at that time rather tender plants ; master 

 Cole cast a blanket over the top of his laureJ, in frosty wea- 

 ther, to protect it ; but though nearly two centuries have 

 since elapsed, not one of them will yet bear with certainty 

 our winter frosts. 



Though some of these shrubs ripen their seeds in this cli- 

 mate, it never has been, I believe, the custom of gardeners 

 to sow them ; some are propagated by suckers and cuttings, 

 and others by imported seeds ; consequently the very identi- 

 cal laurel introduced by master Cole, and some others of 

 the plants enumerated by Parkinson, are now actually 

 growing in our gardens; no wonder then, that these originai 

 shrubs have not become hardier, though probably they would 

 have done so, had they passed through several generations 

 by being raised from British seeds. 



Is it not then worthy a trial, as we find that plants raised 

 from suckers or cuttings do not grow hardier by time, aod 

 as the experiment on zizania points out the road, to sow the 

 seeds of these and such like tender shrubs as occasionally 

 ripen them in this climate? Fourteen generations, in the 

 case of the zizania, produced a complete habit of succeeding 

 in this climate, but a considerable improvement in hardiness 

 was evident much earlier. 



In plants that require some years to arrive at puberty, 

 fourteen generations is more than any man can hope to sur- 

 vive: but a much less number will in many cases be suffi- 

 cient, and in all, though a complete habit of hardihood is 

 not attained, a great progress may be made towards it in a 

 nmch less tiifie; even one generation may work <i change of 

 no small importance : if we could make the myrtle bear the 

 climate of Middlesex, as well as it does that of Devonshire, 

 or exempt our laurel hedges from the danger of being cut 

 down by severe frosts, it would be an acquisition of no small 



I 4 conSLTiMcnce 



