3'26 PRINCIPLES OF GARDENING. [CH. IX. 



melon and cucumber plants, if groTNii in a tem- 

 perature too low, produce an excess of female blos- 

 soms ; but if the temperature be too bigli, blossoms 

 of the opposite sex are by far too profuse. 



If a plant be frozen, and though some defy the at- 

 tacks of frost, others are \ery liable to its fatal influence, 

 death is brought upon them as it is in the animal 

 frame, by a complete breaking down of their tis- 

 sue, their vessels are ruptured, and putrefaction 

 supervenes wdth unusual rapidity. As already 

 observed, when considering the means of acclimatiz- 

 ing plants, the more abundant is the water present 

 in their vessels, the more apt are they to be in- 

 jured by frosts, w^hence the young shoots are often 

 destroyed, whilst the older branches remain un- 

 injured, and crops on ill-drained soils suffer more 

 severely in ^vinter than those where the drainage is 

 more perfect. 



Deficiency of light is another contingency most 

 influential in promoting the decline and death of 

 plants. In proportion as they are deprived of this 

 stimulus, they become unable to elaborate their 

 juices, and, deficient in colour, weak, and of unnatural 

 height, they die prematurely, and decompose more 

 rapidly than those whose fibres, more firm and 

 robust, are less combined with an excess of watery sap. 



Finally, the unhealthy vicissitudes to which plants, 

 in common with all other orGjanized forms, are ex- 



