220 On acclimatising Plants 



that it is capable of offering at the time of the matter contained 

 in it becoming frozen. Hence it follows, that a plant in a grow- 

 ing state, with its tissue fully distended, must be a certain 

 victim, however hardy its nature ; while one more tender, in a 

 dormant state, or with its juices drained, will resist an unexpected 

 degree of cold. This satisfactorily explains the otherwise inex- 

 plicable escapes that plants sometimes experience; and perfectly 

 accounts for the little dependence that can be placed upon ori- 

 ginal climate. This principle of reducing the sap of plants is 

 neither understood nor acknowledged by many gardeners, who, 

 nevertheless, without knowing what they are doing, give their 

 cabbages the full benefit of it. Many valuable varieties of the 

 ^rassica tribe cannot stand our winters, until they have been laid, 

 as the operation of disrooting is termed; or until their roots 

 have been cut, the supply of sap shortened, and the juices of the 

 plant wasted by respiration, until it becomes flaccid, retaining 

 enough to support life, but not enough, when expanded, to de- 

 stroy it. 



This is a very simple operation, and may be considered a 

 very unmeaning example in the present case; but simple as the 

 operation is, or whatever may be the reasons assigned for its 

 performance, the result is most important; as, by it were a single 

 stroke of the spade, a tender, or at least a very doubtful, plant 

 has been rendered perfectly hardy. And why should a practice 

 so satisfactory in its results be confined to a single tribe, when 

 its influence may reasonably be supposed to extend to the whole 

 vegetable creation ? That its influence does extend to many 

 others we have abundant proof, as growing plants in poor soil, 

 keeping others extremely dry, and many other expedients that 

 we resort to, to produce the same effect, are mere modifications 

 of the same system. 



All these expedients tend to the reduction of the sap ; and, 

 according as we succeed in effecting this, so are our endeavours 

 crowned with success. The plant growing in poor soil is not 

 actually disrooted ; the scanty supply its site at all times affords 

 renders this operation unnecessary, and perhaps unbearable ; it 

 naturally produces scanty, elastic, and comparatively sapless 

 roots, while it offers no inducement to luxuriant growth, or pre- 

 mature vegetation ; the bane of most turned out exotics. Dis- 

 rooting plants placed in more favoured circumstances would cause 

 them to produce fibre, possessing ah the requisite qualities, and fit 

 to commence their growth at the proper season. In short, we 

 should have plants capable of all the endurance of the former, 

 and enjoying all the benefits of the latter situation. To what 

 extent disrooting may be carried, at what time performed, and 

 how far exotics are to be benefited by it, can only be ascertained 

 by experience; but it may be presumed that it ought always to 



