146 President's Address. 



continued selection of young plants that have been grown 

 from seeds, I hope to be able to demonstrate in the course 

 of the following remarks. 



The plants that are best suited for withstanding the 

 vicissitudes and rigours of our rather fickle climate are 

 those that make and mature their annual growths within 

 that portion of tlie year in which frosts are altogether or 

 nearly absent, and that, consequently, neither commence 

 expanding their buds too early in spring, nor continue 

 growing too late in the autumn. Hence, in selecting the 

 hardier varieties, these essential characteristics should be 

 carefully kept in view, unless in those occasional instances 

 which happen when an ungenial summer and autumn, 

 such as we had in 1879, is followed by a severe winter like 

 the last, when highly satisfactory results may be readily 

 obtained by merely selecting plants that have best with- 

 stood the inclemency. 



In elucidation of the subject I have, in order to combine 

 brevity with distinctness, arranged my explanatory and 

 confirmatory, as well as suggestive, remarks under the 

 following seven headings : — 



I. Plants that expand their Buds earlier in Spring than 

 others. — Among a quantity of any given species of young 

 plants that have been reared from seeds, whether in the 

 seed-bed, in nursery lines, or after being planted out, some 

 will be found that expand their buds much earlier than 

 others, and are consequently more liable to be injured by 

 the later spring frosts. This is peculiarly characteristic 

 of the Himalayan plants, showing that in their natural 

 habitats, when the winter or dormant season ends, it is 

 quickly followed by tlie growth-promoting warmth of 

 spring ; and that they are there free from that alternating 

 frosty and mild weather which prevails from February 

 till past the middle of May in our changeable climate, and 

 which often destroys or irrecoverably disfigures the fine 

 conifers and other plants of Upper India, even after they 

 have passed unscathed through very severe frosts in the 

 course of the preceding winter. 



Growers' of the many unsurpassably fine Nepaul and 

 Sikkim rhododendrons are too familiar with these dis- 

 appointing results, and, in order to insure the unimpaired 



