in British Gardens. -2 c 2l 



be done in time to prevent the plants from growing in winter, 

 and to reduce them to the lowest state, consistent with their 

 safety, before the commencement of frost. 



Upon this power of conforming themselves to the seasons 

 must, in a great measure, depend the hardiness of all kinds of 

 plants. Many, even natives of our own hills, owe their safety 

 entirely to the absence of sap at such a season ; if forced un- 

 seasonably into leaf, and exposed, they would be found as sus- 

 ceptible of injury as the tenderest exotics. Escape, in such a 

 condition, is, in fact, an impossibility, and would be a direct vio- 

 lation of infrangible laws, to which even the monarch of the 

 wood (when caught in this condition) has been compelled to bow 

 his head in submission. 



How unreasonable, then, to suppose exotics capable of offering 

 effectual resistance, placed in the very same circumstances ! Ab- 

 surd as this proposal may appear, as it can hardly be said to 

 cause either extra trouble or expense, I hope that all of your 

 readers who feel interested in the subject will give it a trial ; the 

 result of the experiment will soon be ascertained ; and, if by it 

 one degree of hardihood is obtained, it will amply repay the ex- 

 perimenter, whose only care must be to train his plants into a 

 proper condition to bear cold, and not to apply any covering till 

 it is wanted. 



When speaking of covering, I cannot help remarking that 

 many fine specimens in the superb American ground of the 

 Venerable Archdeacon Croft, at Saltwood, near Hythe, are 

 covered with a sort of baskets that I consider superior to those 

 figured in p. 44. Their superiority consists in the top part being 

 made to take off like the top of a hand-glass ; the tops are thus 

 removed in fine weather, to admit plenty of light and air. They 

 are formed of the same materials as those figured, and were con- 

 structed under the directions of Mr. Acombs, gardener to the 

 archdeacon. These are probably the very best sort of covering 

 in present use ; and as shelters from the wind, or protectors in 

 spring, they are all that can be wished : but winter covers for 

 plants can never be of service, unless they defend them from rain. 

 This the variableness of our climate renders imperatively neces- 

 sary. The night of the 29th January, when rain fell in torrents, 

 and in a few hours the temperature was reduced to 20°, is a 

 striking example of this necessity. Plants in this case, fully ex- 

 posed, might have the wet shaken from them, but those covered 

 must have been encased in ice. Snow, too, lodges upon them, 

 and melts in sunshine, while the interior is freezing; and, under 

 such circumstances, the plants that we suppose to be enjoying 

 protection are being watered overhead. Hence, if the movable 

 tops of these baskets were covered with any cheap waterproof 

 material, or formed of boards, tin, or zinc, they would be incom- 



