12 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



In December and January sharp frosts at night are not 

 unfrequent, sufficiently severe to destroy many of the tender 

 kinds of shrubs, unless protected. The European annuals, 

 though often in the early morning rigid with a white coating 

 of hoar-frost upon them, and in an hour or so after exposed to 

 the burning rays of the sun full upon them, seem, with one or 

 two exceptions, to take little harm, otherwise than that their 

 growth is all but entirely arrested while the season is at the 

 coldest. By the 10th February the frosts are over. 



During March ; after their temporary rest, trees and shrubs 

 in a well-irrigated garden push forth with a vigour perfectly 

 astonishing, far beyond anything of the kind ever witnessed in 

 Bengal. The young shoots, however, thus rapidly produced, 

 are very apt to be scorched up and killed in a few hours' time 

 by the fierce hot gales that prevail soon after. 



In May the- heat becomes intense, the same at night as during 

 the day. At this period the garden, must be unremittingly 

 watered. Many plants in the border left unwatered even for 

 a fortnight would of a certainty perish, and most would be 

 sure of dying, if left unwatered during the whole of the dry 

 season. This excessive heat continues with little intermission, 

 unless during the heavy falls of rain that occur more or less in 

 July and August, till September, when it begins gradually to 

 abate. 



After the rains furious winds frequently spring up, uprooting 

 large shrubs and fruit-trees from the soil, while soddened with 

 wet, and soft and loose. There is nothing that happens 

 throughout the whole year so pernicious to the garden as this, 

 and the evil of which it is more difficult to counteract or 

 remedy. 



And now, before leaving the subject of climate, a few words 

 may be added with regard to the plants from other quarters of 

 the globe, that are likely to prove suited to India. On this 

 question not much can be decided but by actual trial. We 

 have as yet very little clue to guide us, from what we know of 

 the structure and habit of a plant as it exists elsewhere, in 

 determining whether it would thrive or exist in this country. 

 Of two plants brought from the same identical spot, the one 

 will thrive vigorously, while the other will pine and perish, 

 without our being able to assign the remotest reason why. 



