20 Effects of Frost on Plants. 



useful employments in which the horticulturist can engage. It 

 is far more likely to lead to results of importance than attempts 

 to acclimatize plants ; an object which has already occupied so 

 much time to so little purpose, that I doubt whether any one case 

 of actual acclimatization can be adduced ; that is to say, any one 

 case of a species naturally tender having been made hardy, or 

 even hardier than it was originally. Not to mention other cases 

 in point, Cerasus Lauro-cerasus is as tender as it was in Parkin- 

 son's time, and yet it has been raised from seeds through many 

 generations ; the potatoe retains its original impatience of frost, 

 and so does the kidney-bean ; which last might at least have been 

 expected to become hardier, if reiterated raising from seed in cold 

 climates could bring about that result. The many beautiful and 

 valuable half-hardy hybrids, lately provided for our gardens, are 

 no exception to this statement, for they are not instances of a 

 tender species being hardened, but of new and hardy creations 

 obtained by the art of man from parents of which the one is 

 hardy and the other dehcate. Acclimatization, in the strict sense 

 of the word, seems to be a chimera." 



The tabular view of the effects of the, frost upon a great num- 

 ber of species in different places, v/ith the annexed minimum 

 temperature observed at those places, and the detailed observa- 

 tions that follow, afford a very full statistical account of the injury 

 committed. That this injury is due, in many cases at least, not 

 so much to the actual reduction of temperature, as to the condi- 

 tion of the plants produced by the warm weather immediately 

 preceding, and perhaps by the subsequent thaw, is not only highly 

 probable a priori, but is confirmed by the recorded effects of that 

 winter upon the plants introduced from colder climates. In other 

 and perhaps the greater part of the instances recorded, the exces- 

 sive cold to which the plants ^vere exposed, was doubtless suffi- 

 cient of itself, as Dr. Lindley supposes, to ensure their destruc- 

 tion. The effects produced on the plants indigenous to the Uni- 

 ted States may be adduced in proof of the former statement. 

 Thus Fraxi^ius Americajia was greatly injured in the garden of 

 the Horticultural Society, where the greatest cold was - 4J. This 

 tree is indigenous throughout the State of New York, where it 

 grows to a large size, and endures our severe winters with perfect 

 impunity. From the abstract of (he meteorological observations 

 made to the Regents of the Uiu" versify, and published in their 



