138 Mr Sadler's Report on O'pcn-Air Vegetation. 



Vegetables stood the severe frost well. Broccoli plants, laid 

 over in November vrith their heads to the north, but protected 

 in no other way, came through without any loss, and have been 

 plentiful and good from November till the present time. Celery 

 stood well without any protection ; and all other winter crops, 

 except a few Curled Kale and Savoys which grew in the lowest 

 part of the garden, only a few feet above the level of the South 

 Esk, where they were killed right off to a height of about 20 feet 

 above the river as the ground rises from it. Vegetable crops this 

 season are so far very satisfactory, and fully a month earlier than at 

 the same period last year. 



A noteworthy fact in connection with the present season is the 

 remarkable scarcity of floAver on most of our hardy trees and shrubs. 

 Early Ehododendrons flowered pretty freely, but R. 2^onticurn, 

 and all the later varieties are almost flowerless. Any flowers to 

 be seen upon them are puny and badly formed, and anything but 

 attractive. Lilacs, Deutzias, Philadelphus, Weigelas, Eibes, and 

 such like are, as a rule, but sparsely flowered. Many Horse Chest- 

 nuts are without a single flower-spike ; and the fine old Hawthorns, 

 for which Dalkeith Park is famous, have scarcely produced a well- 

 flowered specimen this season. The Laburnum is almost the only 

 flowering tree that has produced a good crop of blossom, and kept 

 up its credit as one of the hardiest and best of our ornamental trees. 



The above by no means exhausts the list of plants that have 

 suff'ered from the efiect of the untoward winter of 1879-80, but the 

 damage to others is of a comparatively trifling and temporary 

 nature, from which they will soon recover. 



From Mr W. B. Boyd, Ormiston House, Kelso. 



June 3, 1880. 

 The winter of 1879-80 has been the most severe and trying 

 to vegetation within the memory of any one living. I enclose 

 you extract from note of readings of the thermometer kept by Mr 

 Fairbairn, my gardener, here for one week of the lowest tem- 

 peratures during the winter, from which you will see that we 

 registered during the night of Wednesday and morning of Thurs- 

 day, the 3d and 4th December, 50° of frost, or 18° below zero (see p. 

 139). The thermometer nearly 2 feet from the ground. The amount of 

 damage done to trees and shrubs has been very great. During tLe 

 previous winter nearly all the oaks, at a lower level than 50 feet 

 above the river Teviot, had all the young wood of the previous 



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