18 Effects of Frost on Plants. 



" For to one imbued with a taste for natural science, Nature 

 unfolds ' her hoarded poetry and her hidden spells ;' for him 

 there is a voice in the winds, and a language in the waves — and 

 he is 



' Even as one 

 Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye, 

 In every spot beneath the smiling sun, 



Sees where the springs of living waters lie /' "* 



Art. II. — Observations upon the Effects produced on Plants hy 

 the Frost lohich occurred in England in the-winter of 1837-8 ; 

 by Prof. John Lindley : abstracted and condensed from the 

 Horticultural Transactions of London.f 



In noticing the disastrous effects of the extraordinary winter 

 of 1837-8 upon the exotic plants suppposed to be hardy, as well 

 as upon many of those indigenous to England, Dr. Lindley first 

 makes some remarks on the state of the weather during the pre- 

 ceding summer and autumn. These are founded chiefly upon 

 observations made in the garden of the Horticultural Society at 

 Chiswick near London. 



" The month of April, 1837, was perhaps the coldest and at 

 the same time the most sunless ever remembered. It was 7^ 

 Fahr. below the mean of the same month for ten preceding years ; 

 and the temperature of May following was 6° below the average. 

 In the latter month, the appearance of vegetation was like what 

 it generally presents a month earlier. * * * * The general tem- 

 perature of April and May being thus low, and the nights fre- 

 quently frosty throughout both months, vegetation advanced but 

 little, and only commenced under favorable circumstances in June; 

 plants consequently made the greater portion of their growth after 

 midsummer and during the autumn, at which season the short- 

 ness of the days, and an unusual deficiency of sun heat, were 

 insufficient to enable them to complete the process of lignification. 



* Mrs. Hemans. 



t Messrs. Editors — The memoir with this title, published in the last volume of 

 the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London, possesses so great gene- 

 ral interest, that, on the supposition that few of your American readers will meet 

 with it in its original form, I have made the enclosed copious abstract of the more 

 generally important portions for publication in your Journal, adding a few notes in 

 one or two instances. A. G. 



