112 Principles of Plant Culture. 



ficient to complete and fully mature its normal amount 

 of growth. Varieties of the apple and other trees, that 

 so far complete their growth in any given locality that 

 their leaves fall before hard frosts, are rarely injured in 

 winter, while those that continue growth until their 

 foliage is destroyed by freezing suifer in severe winters. 

 Deciduous trees are liable to destruction in severe win- 

 ters in a climate where none of the leaves fall before 

 hard frosts, as is the case with the peach, apricot and 

 nectarine in northern United States. 



176. Individual Plants Cannot Adjust Themselves to a 

 New Environment, except to a slight extent. The power 

 to complete the annual growth processes and become 

 sufficiently dormant to endure the rigor of the rest period 

 in any given locality is inherited, and not acquired. We 

 are, therefore, able to do very little toward inuring or 

 acclimatizing (ac-cli'-nia-tiz-ing) individual plants to an 

 environment to which they were not adapted by nature. 

 We may, however, through the variations of offspring 

 (18), secure varieties in some cases that can endure an 

 environment which the parents could not endure. 



177. Plant Processes during the Rest Period may not 

 entirely cease. Although food preparation is wholly 

 suspended, root growth and the callusing (73) of injured 

 root surfaces proceed to some extent during the winter in 

 unfrozen layers of soil; and in sufficiently mild weather, 

 the reserve food in the stem gradually moves in the direc- 

 tion of the terminal buds. 



178. Cuttings (358) of Woody Plants are Preferably Made 

 in Autumn in climates of severe winters and buried in the 

 ground below the limit of hard freezing, in order that 



