Transactions of the luondon Horticultural Society. 481 



shrubs were entirely destroyed. It was here, and elsewhere, remarked that 

 the double Ulex europaeus was more hardy than the wild species, and that 

 Ulex strictus, the Irish furze, suffered more than either. 



" In Ireland, as is usual, the winter was much less severe ; Mr. Mackay 

 reports the lowest temperature in Trinity College Garden, Dublin, to have 

 been only 20°. Mr. Kobertson, in the Gardener's Magazine, speaks of the 

 cold of Kilkenny as having also been 20°, at the distance of 40 miles from the 

 sea, and at the computed elevation of 500 feet. 



" In the Glasnevin Botanic Garden, the thermometer is stated by Mr. 

 Niven not^to have fallen below 15° above zero. In this station the dwarf 

 fan palm (CliamcErops Jiumilis') has stood for two winters almost without 

 injury. 



" It is however remarkable, that in some of the north-eastern parts of Eng- 

 land, the cold should have been much less than about London, and in several 

 parts of the south coast. 



" According to the observations of the Hon, and Rev. W. Herbert, at 

 SpofForth, near Wetherby in Yorkshire, the thermometer never fell below 

 13° with him, or below 10° in that neighbourhood. But the cold seems in 

 this place to have been compensated by its duration for its want of intensity. 

 When the temperature relaxed with rain in February, although the snow 

 melted nearly away, the rain froze for about 48 hours as it fell, and covered 

 the whole face of the country with a sheet of ice, which was not long after 

 buried under a fresh coat of 5 inches of snow, and it was a considerable time 

 after the frost broke up finally, before the under coat of ice was completely 

 thawed. Indeed, Mr. Herbert is of opinion, that the great injury to the shrubs 

 was not occasioned by the severest night ; for, when the weather relaxed for a 

 few days, the leaves of the white Rhododendron arboreum were not killed, nor 

 the wood of R. Acklandi ; but after the snow had returned, the glass fell one 

 night to 1 6°, and the great mischief was everywhere apparent the next day. 

 ' If there had not been an intermediate remission of the frost, the plants would 

 perhaps not have suffered so much.' 



" At Owston, near Doncaster, several valuable facts were noted down by 

 Philip Davies Cooke, Esq., from plants growing in loam on a substratum of 

 magnesian limestone ; this place is situated in a low, not wet position, in lat. 

 53J°. Here the thermometer is reported not to have fallen below 6° above 

 zero. Among other facts, of which use has been made elsewhere, Mr. Cooke 

 remarks, that he found those plants suffering least, which were most sheltered 

 from the morning sun. In a clayey loam, 2 feet in depth, on a limestone 

 substratum, several laurustinuses, thus sheltered, and in a situation not 

 affected by damp, did not suffer at all ; and other specimens against walls, on 

 which the sun never shines, were equally uninjured. 



" At Belsay Castle, in Northumberland, in the neighbourhood of which 

 the thermometer was not remarked lower than 10° above zero, the ground 

 was covered with snow to the depth of from 1 to 2 feet, during at least eight 

 weeks ; and consequently but little damage comparatively was experienced. 

 For this reason the results observed in this garden are at variance with those 

 obtained elsewhere, and the effects of the frost were much less severe than 

 would have been expected from the northerly station of Belsay. Cauliflowers 

 covered by hand-glasses were unharmed. A standard plant of Spartium 

 aetnense had only the points of its shoots scorched by the frost, but it was 

 not in its usual health in the following summer. Camellias with a slight 

 covering of haulm, although weakened, were saved, but myrtles were killed 

 to the ground. Among the plants, which sustained little or no injury, were 

 Abies Deodara, Pseonia Moutan, and the following magnolias, viz. tripetala, 

 auriculata, glauca, and Thompsoniana, as standards, and M. conspicua, against 

 a wall. In a nursery ground, 500 feet above the sea, a cypress, about 20 

 years old, was scorched, but younger plants were mostly killed; Araucaria 

 Dombeyi, and a scarlet arbutus were not hurt, and Cunninghamia sinensis 

 was only injured in the upper branches. 



