PROPER TREATMENT CONTINUED. 61 



will have the consolation of having done all you could to 

 avert it. Plants, like people, sometimes die under what 

 seems to be the best of treatment, but they are often ill 

 and recover. 



FROZEN PLANTS. 



Such plants I hope you will never have occasion 

 to treat. You remember that in the arrangements of 

 our Eden, we have taken every precaution against freez- 

 ing, by having a continuous heat, by drawing the plants 

 back from the windows on severely cold nights, or lifting 

 them up from the floor, or covering them closely with 

 paper. And so I hope that you may escape the touch of 

 frost, as I have hitherto. But it is well to know what to 

 do in any possible emergency. 



I have seen it reported of a lady, somewhere, that she 

 " has saved her plants when frozen hard by leaving 

 them to dry in a perfectly dark cellar for three days," and 

 has found it much better than "showering with cold 

 water." If the plants thus treated "never lost a leaf," 

 as alleged, they must have been of some hardy varieties 

 or in a state of comparative rest. Professional florists 

 generally agree that exclusion from the light is quite un- 

 necessary, if not a positive disadvantage. The one thing 

 on which they earnestly insist, is an upward change of 

 temperature, immediate but gradual, or not for some 

 time extreme. This was probably the real benefit of the 

 cellar, and is the common effect of sprinkling with cool 

 water. Although no guarantee can be given of recovery 

 in all cases, there may be a chance in apparently the 

 worst. As frozen plants are brittle, they should be 

 handled with care. 



Now, it is quite probable that some item of " greenery " 

 management has been overlooked or slighted ; but all of 

 the most important, I think, have been duly set before 

 you. Though they present, at the first glance, a rather 



