ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS. 



ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS. 



comforts, and whose pleasures connect him 

 with them, carries their choice seeds, slips, 

 and scions, far and wide. His interests foster 

 their growth, his attentions enrich their pro- 

 ducts, and his skill and science preserve their 

 existence, and adapt them to their new condi- 

 tion. In an improved community, man's 

 wants multiply ; he has occasion for the more 

 varied and rich fruits ; more abundant and 

 luxurious clothing, and furniture of vegetable 

 growth ; odours to regale his senses, vegetable 

 flavours to pamper his appetites, and all the 

 medicinal plants to heal his various diseases, 

 and invigorate his shattered constitution. He 

 attaches himself to agriculture and horticul- 

 ture : plants become his companions ; he car- 

 ries a creative resource into those departments, 

 and by his attentions, forms new varieties and 

 excellences, unknown to the wild state of 

 vegetable existence. Such are the means na- 

 ture has provided for the propagation and 

 extension of plants ; such are the indirect 

 locomotive powers they possess. We must 

 no longer, therefore, consider vegetables such 

 inert and sluggish beings. 



Human care, and the providences of nature, 

 have given to many plants a great extent of 

 climate and latitude, an enlarged growth, and 

 an increased and improved product. Let us 

 bring together such instances as are within the 

 knowledge of all, and which ought to stimulate 

 our cultivators to greater efforts. 



The valley of the Euphrates was doubtless 

 the native region of all those tine and delicious 

 fruits which enrich our orchards, and enter so 

 largely into the luxury of living. We thence 

 derived all the succulent and nutritious vege- 

 tables that go so far to support life ; and even 

 the farinaceous grains appertain to the same 

 region. The cereal productions began in that 

 same valley to be the staff of life. 



Our corn, our fruit, our vegetables, our 

 roots, and oil, have all travelled with man 

 from Mesopotamia up to latitude 60, and even 

 farther, in favourable situations. The cares 

 of man have made up for the want of climate, 

 and his cultivation atoned for this alienation 

 from their native spot. The Scandinavians 

 of Europe, the Canadians of North America, 

 and the Samoides of Asia, are now enjoying 

 plants which care and cultivation have natu- 

 ralized in their bleak climes. Melons and 

 peaches, with many of the more tender 

 plants and fruits, once almost tropical, have 

 reached the 45th degree of latitude in perfec- 

 tion, and are found even in 50. Rice has 

 travelled from the tropics to 36, and that of 

 North Carolina now promises to be better than 

 that of more southern countries. The grape 

 has reached 50, and produces good wine and 

 fruit in Hungary and Germany. The orange, 

 lemon, and sugar-cane, strictly tropical, grow 

 well in Florida, and up to 31, in Louisiana, 

 and the fruit of the former much larger and 

 better than under the equator. 



Annual plants grown for roots and vegeta- 

 bles, and grain, go still farther north in pro- 

 portion, than the trees and shrubs, because 

 their whole growth is matured in one summer; 

 and we know that the developement of vegeta- 

 tion is much quicker when spring does open 



1 in countries far to the north, than in the tro- 

 | pics. In Lapland and on Hudson's Bay, the 

 full leaf is unfolded in one or two weeks, 

 1 when spring begins, although it requires six 

 ! or eight weeks in the south. Nature makes 

 up in despatch for the want of length in her 

 seasons, and this enables us to cultivate the 

 annual plants very far to the north, in full per- 

 fection. The beans, pumpkins, potatoes, peas, 

 cabbages, lettuce, celery, beets, turnips, and 

 thousands of others, seem to disregard climate, 

 and grow in any region or latitude where man 

 plants and cherishes them. The fig is becom- 

 ing common in France ; the banana, pine- 

 apple, and many other plants, have crossed the 

 line of the tropics, and thousands of the plants 

 valuable for food, clothing, and medicine, and 

 such as are cultivated for their beauty, fra- 

 grance, or timber, are extending their climates, 

 and promise much comfort and resource to 

 man. Plants lately introduced, whose cultiva- 

 tion has not run through many ages or years, 

 have acquired but little latitude in their growth, 

 and show but little capacity to bear various 

 climates, because time has not yet habituated 

 them to such changes, and human cares have 

 not imparted to them new habits and new 

 powers. 



Nothing can be effected by suddenness in 

 acclimating plants; too quick a. transition 

 would shock them ; it must be a very gradual 

 process, embracing many years, and many 

 removals. The complete success that has at- 

 tended the plants first named, the earliest com- 

 panions of man, proves this. In the more 

 recent plants, success is exactly in proportion 

 to the length of time that a plant has been in 

 a train of experimental culture. 



The most striking method of testing the 

 effect of climate on plants, is to carry suddenly 

 back to the south, such as have been extended 

 far, and become habituated to a northern cli- 

 mate. Such plants have so much vigour, and 

 the habit of a quick and rapid growth so firmly 

 fixed on them, by a long residence in the north, 

 that when suddenly taken to the south, al- 

 though the season be long and ample, they 

 continue, from habit, to grow arid mature 

 quick, and obtain the name of rare-ripe ; be- 

 cause they do not take half of the time to 

 mature, that those of the same family require, 

 which have never been so changed. Garden- 

 ers give us early corn, peas, fruit, and turnips, 

 by getting seed from places far to the north; 

 and cotton growers renew the vigour of the 

 plant by getting the most northern seed. This 

 practice is common in the case of most plants, 

 and is founded on the supposition that plants 

 do, and can acquire habits. 



The fact supported in the first number of the 

 American Journal of Geology and Natural 

 Science, "that plants are most productive near 

 the northern limit in which they will grow," 

 that they bear more seed or fruit, and have 

 more vigour of constitution, offers much en- 

 couragement to agriculturists. This proves 

 that it is not a meager, stinted existence, de- 

 void of profit or productiveness, that we give 

 to plants, by pushing their culture far north, 

 but a strong and healthful growth, one that 

 repays the labour and attention, by a greater 



21 



