478 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



degree of frost. The obvious conclusion to be drawn 

 from this is, not that peach trees are not hardy, but 

 under certain conditions are not hardy ; which facts lead 

 to this theory, that the habits of plants admit of a 

 certain degree of change with regard to the climate 

 which they will bear; that the degree in which this 

 power exists in any plant, is only to be ascertained by 

 experiment, by trying in the open air plants usually 

 considered as tender, or which hitherto have been kept 

 under glass. 



Our usual method of acclimatizing a plant, is to select 

 some very protected and shady spot, as the north side 

 of a thicket, or what we prefer, the interior of some 

 evergreen wood, and to prepare the holes six feet wide 

 and three deep, with loose but poor soil, well drained 

 with stones for the lower eight or ten inches, with 

 barely compost enough to assist the tree through the 

 summer. For the first two or three years in winter, 

 a little mound of earth, eight or ten inches high, is 

 put around the neck of the plant, to prevent the bad 

 effects of thawing and freezing in a most sensitive part, 

 and cedar or hemlock boughs, are placed round its 

 branches ; this covering diminishing year by year, as 

 the tree obtains size and vigor, until it is omitted 

 altogether. The plant, to ensure safety, is moved once 

 or twice within this wood, each time to a more exposed 

 situation, which has also the additional advantage (like 

 root pruning) of checking all redundancy of growth. 

 When it exhibits sufficient strength, it is transplanted 

 to its final situation on the lawn its cedar covering 

 being renewed for a couple of winters and, if it can 

 be reconciled to the climate, it is now supposed to 

 be so. 



"We have found it very perplexing to arrive at any 

 thorough and satisfactory decision as to comparative 

 hardihood of trees in different portions of the United 

 States, from its being so difficult to reconcile the appa- 



