562 General Notices. 



The ripening process consists in a gradual and complete removal of su- 

 perfluous water ; and in a perfect conversion of fluid, crude, organizable 

 matter into the more solid substances which represent it during winter. 

 These two processes, although essentially distinct, are nevertheless brought 

 about by the same agents and may be regarded as one. Superfluous water 

 is driven off by heat, light, and currents of air acting upon the surface ; 

 sclerogen, starch, gum, resin, and other solid secretions are in like manner 

 formed by the force exerted upon vegetable vitality by heat and light, and 

 by the carbonaceous matter derived from the air. If these agents are in- 

 sufiicient the wood remains soft and watery, and the solid secretions are so 

 incompletely elaborated that they possess little of the stability natural to 

 them in a complete condition. Heat and light together, in the presence of 

 air, if possessing the requisite power, solidify all the tissues and all their 

 contents, keeping up the play of chemico-vital action until the process of 

 assimilation and elaboration is terminated. 



The efl^ect of this ripening process is by no means limited to giving plants 

 a power of resisting cold ; that is but an incident in the operation. The 

 main object is to provide an abundance of food, of the proper kind, for the 

 instantaneous nutrition of the parts which are about to appear in the suc- 

 ceeding spring, and also, in many cases, to the production of the embryo 

 flowers upon which the hopes of the gardener are founded. It is literally 

 true, that not a flower will appear upon a camellia, or an azalea, or a pear, 

 or a peach, or a strawberry, or any other tree, shrub, or herb, unless there 

 has been such an amount of heat and light, and free exposure to the air, as 

 will have caused nutriment in abundance to be formed, and the young and 

 tender, nay invisible scales, which come together and make the flower, to 

 arrange themselves in the order assigned to them by the Creator. 



This explains the great advantage of a dry, warm autumn to our straw- 

 berry beds, which then produce an abundant blossom in the following year ; 

 while those who coddle and nurse their plants in cool and shady places, 

 where they are always growing, have leaves in plenty, but not a fruit. 

 This explains why camellias flower so ill in close greenhouses facing the 

 north, or darkened by vines, where they have neither heat, nor light, nor 

 air enough ; and why, under circumstances the reverse of this, a bright 

 sun, its accompanying heat, and the constant currents invariably present in 

 the open air, flower-buds appear in crowds. 



In England we have little idea of the extent to which this ripening should 

 go ; it is doubtful indeed whether the wood of exotics is ever ripened in 

 England. We are told that in hot latitudes the wood of the peach and 

 vine becomes as hard as mahogany, and as brittle, up to the points of the 

 shoots. We know that numerous shrubs, especially of the race called 

 hard-wooded, never become in cultivation what the samples of them brought 

 from their natural abodes have led us to expect. Among New Holland 

 plants this is more especially the case ; we see them in our herbaria loaded 

 with blossoms ; in our gardens we are satisfied if they bloom at all. It is 

 said that the Grevilleas and Hakeas, and Persoonias are in some instances 

 sheets of white or yellow, or red ; we are too happy if we see their leaves. 



