NEW ENGLrAND FARMEK 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



PUBLISHED BY GEORGE c' BARRETT, NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aoricui.tural WarehooskO-T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 20, 1836. 



NO. 





BI ASS ACHV SETTS HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETV, 



[The followin<» valuable paper was received loo late lor 

 insertion in our last.] 



So.UE Remarks on Temperature considered in 



RELATION TO VEGETATION AND THE NATURAL- 

 IZATION OF Plants. 



The natural distribution of the vegetable king- 

 dom over the face of the globe, as affected by 

 various causes, and chiefly by the tem|)erature of 

 the difl^erent countries and continents, is one of 

 the most interesting of all subjects. As the illus- 

 trious Von Humboldt has observed, it is " inti- 

 mately connected with the physical world in gen- 

 eral. Upon the predominance of certain families 

 of plants in particular districts, depend the char- 

 acter of the country and the whole face of nature ; 

 and the natural congregation of vast masses of 

 vegetation of the same character in particular 

 countries has produced most important effects 

 upon the social state of the people, the nature of 

 their manners, and the degree of developenient 

 of the arts of industry." 



The difference of vegetation, as exhibited in 

 the torrid, the tem|)erate and the frigid zones, is 

 sufficiently familiar to every one. The equinoc- 

 tial regions, abounding with their splendid vege- 

 tation of lofty Palms, Bread-fruit trees. Plantains 

 and Banannas, laden with huge masses of nourish- 

 ing food, differ as widely from those portions of 

 the earth lying in the temperate zones, where the 

 vine flourishes in perfection, and the cereal grains 

 furnish the chief means of subsistence to man, as 

 the latter does from the arctic regions, where the 

 grasses and cryptogamic plants still keep up the 

 diminishing scale of vegetable life, and contribute 

 to the support of a higher class of organized be- 

 ings. It is probable that almost every country 

 produces naturally in its vegetation, sufficient 

 means for the subsistence of man ; either directly, 

 as in the torrid and temperate regions through the 

 medium of delicious fruits, esculent roots and 

 seeds, or indirectly, as is partially the case in the 

 temperate and frigid divisions through animal life, 

 which primarily subsisted upon vegetation in some 

 of its forms. But man in a civilized state, espe- 

 cially in those countries where climate forbids 

 nature to lavish her bounties in the greatest pro- 

 fusion, has refused to be satisfied with her supplies, 

 and has delighted his taste and gratified his wishes 

 by assembling around him, as far as possible, the 

 production^ of other countries, either to embellish 

 his habitations, or satisfy liis appetites. Hence 

 many plants, which were exotics, have become so 

 acclimatised or naturalized, as to aflford the prin- 

 cipal food of their inhabitants, and the staple 

 productions of their soils. The vine and the fig, 

 which are the boast of France, are not indigenous 

 there. The orange, that produces its beautiful 

 golden fruit in the south of Europe and our own 

 country, is a native of Asia. Some of the com- 

 moner grains have followed civilized man in his 



migrations for such a length of time that it has 

 now become difficult to say which was their na- 

 tive country. This is the case with wheat, millet 

 and buckwheat, and many other grasses which it 

 is supposed are indigenous in the oriental coim- 

 tries. How much we are indebted to other cli- 

 mfttes and other countries for our most valuable 

 necessaries and luxuries in the vegetable kingdom 

 a single thought will convince us. Wheat, rye, 

 and most of the other grains, cotton and rice, the 

 staples of our soil have all been imjiorted here ; 

 and our most ilelicious fruits, owe their origin to 

 other lands. The (leach is from Persia, the apri- 

 cot from Armenia, the cherry from Pontus, and 

 nearly all our finest cultivated varieties of a[>plcs, 

 pears, p'ums, &o. from Europe. 



These preliminary remarks lead us to reflect 

 how much the arts of culture are indebted to the 

 property which tnany plants have, to a certain de- 

 gree, of becoming naturalized in a country where 

 the variations of temperature difl^er from those of 

 their own ; and it may lead us also to investigate 

 the most successful methods by which such exot- 

 ics, natives of winner climates, as may be valua- 

 ble to us either in an useful or ornamental point 

 of view, may be so naturalized as to be either 

 partially or entirely hardy and able to withstand 

 the severity of our northern winters. That a large 

 proportion of the vegetation of the tropics, can 

 never become acclimatised in regions liable to 

 severe frosts, is evident to every one ; but that a 

 number of highly valuable plants, natives of pe- 

 culiar situations in those countries, and more par- 

 ticularly those of the intermediate ))arailels of 

 latitude, have been, and may be naturalized here, 

 the history of Agriculture and Horticulture afibrds 

 ample and abundant proof Plants of rapid and 

 bulky growth, succulent and tender stenjs, natives 

 of the warmest districts, can never be for a long 

 time exhibited in a state of vegetation here, except 

 in an artificial temperature : but annual plants 

 and trees and shrubs, with strong woody stems, 

 particularly if natives of elevated tracts, as the 

 sides of mountains and the tops nf high table 

 lands, may always be considered as affording pro- 

 babilities of a capacity for naturalization in a 

 colder region. 



A method universally known, and which we 

 are inclined to place foremost among the resources 

 for the naturalization of plants, consists in sowing 

 continually the seeds of the plant under trial, for 

 successive generations and from seeds produced 

 in the country into which the plant is introduced. 

 This, though in many cases, a lengthy and some, 

 what tedious process, is we believe the same by 

 which the most extensive and valuable naturaliza- 

 tions have been effected heretofore. The more 

 tender fruits, as the peach, cherry, apricot and 

 almond, have doubtless been rendered hardy in 

 this way : each new generation possessing perhaps 

 diminished vigor, bnt acquiring a njore robust 

 and hardy constitution. Although it would have 

 been difficult, perhaps impossible, to have altered 

 the contexture of the original tree if otherwise 



continued, (whrther by cuttings, suckers, or layers) 

 yet by reproduction from seed each generation 

 became a little more capable of withstanding th*^ 

 effects of a low temperature, until the desired 

 result was in a measure, or wholly obtained. It 

 is obvious, however, that the result brought about 

 is not the naturalization of the oric^inal siiecies of 

 tree or plant, but, as Professor De Candolle justly 

 observes in his " Physiologic Vegetal^," of the 

 improved vnriety produced from seed, and which 

 has acquired in its contexture a diminished Bug- 

 ccptibility to cold. The effects produced by this 

 n)etho<l of naturalization, are even more abun- 

 dantly exemiilified in the case of herbaceous and 

 annual plants, than among ligneous trees and 

 shrubs. As an instance of thi.s, we may refer to 

 the common Indian corn, which was undoubtedly 

 originally a native of South America and the 

 southern parts of this continent, but of which bo 

 many varieties have been produced by cultivation, 

 that it may he said some particular one can be 

 found naturalized and adapted to any parallel of 

 latitude, from the equator to the 45°, and in Eu- 

 rope to the 55° of latitude.* This is often pro- 

 duced in annual plants, not so much by rendering 

 the plant itself less sensible to cold, for in many 

 cases this is scarcely at all effected, as by prodti- 

 cing improved varieties, which shall ripen their 

 seed and come to maturity in a cold climate, in 

 half or even a fourth of the time necessary for 

 that purpose, in the country where the species is 

 originally a native. Thus the rice, so important 

 an article of food to the natives of the East, was 

 probably first cultivated in Ceylon and Java, 

 whence it spread all over India, Japan and the 

 southern provinces of China, and the United 

 States. It has also been introduced into Italy, 

 Spain and the south of France, and we pereeive 

 that lately an improved variety has been found 

 sufficiently hardy, to produce abundant crops iu 

 the comparatively cold climates of Hungary and 

 Westphalia. Rice may now therefore be consid 

 ered naturalized as far north as the 46° in the old 

 world. The luscious fruit of the melon and th«! 

 cooling one of the cucumber, can scarcely be 

 brought to maturity if the seeds are direct from 

 the more southern climates where they are natives, 

 hut improved varieties have sprung up by culture, 

 so perfectly naturalized as to produce abundant 

 crops in almost every part of the United States. 

 The horticidtnri.st should never therefore reject ' 

 even an annual i)lant, which will not come to 

 maturity inmiediately without artificial aid in our 

 climate, but if the subject is worthy of the pains, 

 he should endeavor, by the aid of artificial shelter 

 if necessary, to i)rocure the seed and sow it under 

 the most favorable circumstances during several 

 successive generations, when it will probably at 

 last produce him a variety which will Withstand 

 the severity of the climate, or come to maturity 

 sufficiently early to escape the destructive effects 



* Cobbeti's Corn, which he brought to maturity in the 

 short and cool summer of England, is, we believe, a very 

 early variety from Canada. 



