62 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



If any one will take the trouble to reason for a minute, be 

 will understand why there is no necessity for this equality 

 of temperature between the water and the soil. If we 

 plunge a thermometer into the soil of a plant in the hot- 

 house, it may indicate, say, eighty degrees ; if we pour a 

 pint of water at forty degrees into the soil, the tempera- 1 

 ture will not be forty degrees, but about the mean between 

 forty and eighty degrees, say sixty degrees. Now, if 

 the soil remained for any length of time at sixty degrees, 

 it might be, to some extent, injurious ; but it does not. 

 In ten minutes it will become of the same temperature 

 as before it was watered, or nearly so, by the absorption 

 of heat from the atmosphere of the house. It is the 

 duration of extremes of temperature that does the 

 mischief ; place a plant of Coleus in a temperature of 

 thirty-three degrees for forty-eight hours, and it will be 

 almost certain to die, while it would remain as many 

 minutes without injury. Let a dash of sun raise the 

 temperature of your hot-bed to one hundred degrees, or 

 over, for ten minutes, and it will not seriously injure the 

 contents, but an hour of this temperature might destroy 

 all the plants. 



We pour ice- water into our stomachs at a temperature 

 of less than forty degrees, with impunity, because but a 

 few minutes suffices to bring it to the temperature it 

 meets with there ; did we swallow a sufficient quantity 

 to keep the stomach at the temperature of ice-water for 

 any length of time, fatal results may follow. 



Although I am emphatic against the necessity of 

 water being of the temperature of the house, where the 

 application of water is generally used, yet I admit that 

 if preference can be given without trouble, give it to the 

 warmer water. I also agree that in cases such as forcing 

 of Lily of the Valley, or for tropical cuttings or seeds 

 just germinating, that water should be used of the tem- 

 perature of the house. 



