20 Effects of Frost on Plants. 
useful employments in which the horticulturist can engage. It 
is far more likely to lead to results of importance than attempts 
to acclimatize plants ; an object which has already occupied so 
much time to so little purpose, that I doubt whether any one case 
of actual acclimatization can be adduced ; that is to say, any one 
case of a species naturally tender having been made hardy, or 
even hardier than it was originally. Not to mention other cases 
in point, Cerasus Lauro-cerasus is as tender as it was in Parkin- 
son’s time, and yet it has been raised from seeds through many 
generations ; the potatoe retains its original impatience of frost, 
and so does the kidney-bean ; which last might at least have been 
expected to become hardier, if reiterated raising from seed in cold 
climates could bring about that result. The many beautiful and 
valuable half-hardy hybrids, lately provided for our gardens, are 
no exception to this statement, for they are not instances of a 
tender species being hardened, but of new and hardy creations 
obtained by the art of man from parents of which the one is 
hardy and the other delicate. Acclimatization, in the strict sense 
of the word, seems to be a chimera.” 
The tabular view of the effects of the frost upon a great num- 
ber of species in different places, with the annexed minimum 
temperature observed at those places, and the detailed observa- 
tions that follow, afford a very full statistical account of the injury 
committed. That this injury is due, in many cases at least, not 
so much to the actual reduction of temperature, as to the condi- 
tion of the plants produced by the warm weather immediately 
preceding, and perhaps by the subsequent thaw, is not only highly 
probable @ priori, but is confirmed by the recorded effects of that 
winter upon the plants introduced from colder climates. In other 
and perhaps the greater part of the instances recorded, the exces- 
sive cold to which the plants were exposed, was doubtless suffi- 
cient of itself, as Dr. Lindley supposes, to ensure their destruc- 
tion. The effects produced on the plants indigenous to the Uni- 
ted States may be adduced in proof of the former statement. 
Thus Frazinus Americana was greatly injured in the garden of 
the Horticultural Society, where the greatest cold was —44. This 
tree is indigenous throughout the State of New York, where it 
grows to a large size, and endures our severe winters with perfect 
mpunity. From the abstract of the meteorological observations 
made to the Regents of the University, and published in their 
