547 



that, since July of last year, hundreds of seedling currants have 

 sprung \A'ithin the limits of my own gardens ; many of them in spots 

 to which they must have been conveyed by birds. I should there- 

 fore consider that birds and mankind might unconsciously stock the 

 woods of the Isle of Wight in the space of a few years. The supply 

 of seeds being constantly renewed, the stock would be kept up, under 

 suiting conditions of soil and climate, even supposing the wild (be- 

 come wild) bushes not to produce others fi'om their own seeds, as 

 would more probably be done under such conditions. 



Dr. Bromfield obseiTcs that the wild currants flower at an earlier 

 date than those of the garden, in the Isle of Wight. This is some- 

 thing additional to the evidence on' the native side ; but still far from 

 conclusive. I cannot state anything positive about the currant ; but 

 we have an analogous case in the gooseberry. Occasionally the seed- 

 lings of the gooseberry have here escaped destruction, and produced 

 flowers and fruit among the ornamental shrubs of the flower-garden. 

 In this shaded situation, the leaf-buds of the gooseberry are at least a 

 fortnight earlier in expanding than are those of their parents cultivated 

 in the open borders of the kitchen-garden. I scarcely know whether 

 to attribute this difierence to the variety or to the shade. It is, how- 

 ever, a fact, that the shelter of trees will frequently hasten the leafing 

 and flowering of plants in spring ; the ground being much less cooled 

 by radiation during the severe nights of winter and eai'lier spring, in 

 such situations. At the same season, the surface of damp ground is 

 less cold than that of dry ground, at least, it is so where the damp- 

 ness is occasioned by water oozing out from underneath the surface. 

 The damp and shaded places in the Isle of Wight, may really be less 

 cold to a plant in early spring ; although, as the season progresses, 

 the open borders of a garden may acquire a higher temperature un- 

 der the sun's rays ; the balance left after radiation being then turned 

 in favour of the garden ground. 



Among notes of the dates at which garden plants open their first 

 flowers in my own garden (say fifty feet above the sea), near the north 

 base of a ridge of hills, rising from one to two hundred feet higher, I 

 find the following : 



Gooseberry, March 20, 1835. March 20, 1836. March 17, 1837 

 ("N. B. A seedling bush flowered long since"). April 7, 1838. 

 April 7, 1840. March 26, 1842. March 23, 1843. April 1, 1844. 

 April 17, 1845. 



Red currant, April 11, 1838. April 10, 1840. March 31, 1843. 

 April 11, 1844. April 21, 1845. 



