Domestic Notices. 135 



the tliermometer at his residence, two miles from the city, fell to the low 

 point of 8° below zero, he remarks : — 



" I have noticed here what I never saw in the city, viz., a sudden fall of 

 the mercury immediately afler sunrise. On tlie morning of the 23d instant, 

 the mercury, just before sunrise, stood at 6°, and ten minutes after sunrise, 

 had fallen to zero.* At ten minutes before sunset, the evening previous, it 

 stood at 36°. Such severe cold and such great and sudden changes cannot 

 fail to be, and already have been, very destructive to vegetation. I find, 

 already, some of my best peach trees almost entirly killed, and many ex- 

 tensively injured, while the apple, pear, plum, apricot, fig, and even the 

 forest trees, are all injured, to some extent, by the cold. The grapevines, 

 also, have lost much of their last season's growth. Our ornamental shrub- 

 bery will make a pitiful appearance next spring. Nearly all the tea rosea 

 have been killed outright. The noisettes are but little better off, while the 

 bourbons and remontants stand it thus far very well, though these, where 

 they made a great growth last season, are injured. The bourbons, re- 

 montants, and some of the rare garden roses, are fortunately now the 

 favorites among amateurs, and if they survive this season, they will always 

 be safe. In this climate we have thought it safe always to leave our tea 

 roses standing out all winter, merely sheltering them from the sun by cedar 

 or pine brush; but they are all gone this time. The ground having been 

 covered with snow through most of tlie severe weather, we have a linger- 

 ing hope that the roots may survive. Almost every plant above ground has 

 suffered to some extent. The blighting blast has blown its baneful breath 

 upon them all alike. 



" For the sake of forming some comparative esti.nate of the severity of 

 this season, I will cite a few examples. During the last winter there was 

 not a time in which full-blown and fresh speciuiens of heart's-ease could 

 not have been gathered in my garden. This winter they were all cut down 

 in December, and have not made their appearance since. For many win- 

 ters past the tender tea and noisette roses have stood out without any 

 protection, in many cases, and under a genial climate many of them had 

 attained an enormous height and size. But now, so far as I have observed, 

 (and I have examined hundreds,) they are killed entirely down to the ground. 

 I have heard of a very large chromatella, (cloth of gold,) in the city, which 

 has escafped. If so, this is an exception. The common Chinese blush daily 

 is a good test, and with me this also has been cut down. But a better test 

 is the rose improperly called the whhe macrophylla. I have some of these 

 that have partly escaped, and others entirely killed. These facts will be 

 regarded with interest by florists at the north. Rose culture has taken the 

 place of every other flower mania, and from the great loss of plants they 

 will be in demand for some time to come." 



* Note. — A farmer from Fairfax county, Virginia, who has kepi a record of wiather, 

 crops, &c., for scvenleen years, informs me ihdl on llie cohJ 'J'uesday morning, week 

 before last, the thermometer was 10 deg. below zero. He had Irequenily noticed the 

 sudden tall of the mercuiy about the tmie oi sunrise. The cause appears to me lo be a 

 slight niovenienl oi ih^ told air belore it has derived any appreciable warmtli ironi the suu. 



