70 THE FLOWER GARDEN. 



remarkable to those who fancy that, from the supe- 

 riority of foreign climates, any English tree would 

 bear a continental winter ; but the bare appearance 

 of the French gardens, mostly composed as they are 

 of deciduous trees, would soon convince them of the 

 contrary. It is not the severity or length of our 

 December nights that generally destroys our more 

 tender exotic plants, but it is the late frosts of April 

 and May, those "nipping frosts," which, coming 

 on after the plant has enjoyed warmth enough to set 

 the sap in action, freeze its life-blood to the heart's 

 core, and cause it to wither and die. The late 

 winter of 1837-8 proved this fact distinctly, which 

 had hardly been sufficiently remarked before. That 

 year, which cut down even our cypresses and china- 

 roses, and from which our gorse-fields have hardly 

 yet recovered, while it injured nearly every plant 

 and tree on south walls and in sheltered borders, and 

 in all forward situations, spared the tender est kinds 

 on north walls and exposed places ; and in Scotland 

 the destruction was hardly felt at all. It was the 

 backwardness of their growing state that saved these 

 plants ; and the knowledge of this fact has already 

 been brought to bear in several recent experiments. 

 The double yellow rose, for instance, one of the 

 most delicate of its class, is now flowered with great 

 success in a northern exposition. It has led men 

 also to study the hybernation of plants perhaps the 

 most important research in which horticulturists have 

 of late engaged ; and it has been ascertained that this 

 state of winter-rest is a most important element in 



