492 ТЕЕ: 
GARDENERS CHRONICLE, 
[Остовев 16, 1875. 
The ** Gardeners’ Chronicle” in America 
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HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS, 1875. 
1o.—Royal Horicultyral ү ‘South Kensington. Meeting 
of Fruit, Floral, a 
то and 11.— Bristol 5 
L3 еа dat g А ү f Clap bue E. 
25. —Royal Biottissitorel d. Hotiety of Ireland. бте Winter 
Exhibition. Sec., A. Balfe, 28, Westland В Bw. Dublin. 
27.—Cheetham Hill Horticultural Societ b arabian 
of Chrysanthemums, Miscellaneous АК, MEE Fru 
Gardeners Chronicle, 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1875. 
AP. COLETMENTS rom oat ae WEEK, 
Oct. 18 t bs, at Stevens’ Rooms. 
TUESDAY, Oct. 14 Sale of 1 | t Dei Pigeons, at Stevens' 
WEDNE ; Oct. 20 — Sale of Dutch Bulbs, at Stevens’ Rooms, 
THURSDAY, -. Oct, ат { = Bievens! Rooms. from Mr. Bull's, at 
e о Natural History Speci- 
mens, at [dime Rooms. 
Oct. 23 — Sale of Dutch Bulbs, at Stevens’ Rooms. 
mr 
NCORRECT terms are a great hindrance 
to the progress of natural science, because 
they not only convey false ideas but imply 
truths. Now 
if ever a word was unluckily chosen to express 
ien trials, they may entertain .grave 
doubts whether Nature admits of such an 
operation as su delineation at least through 
the agency of Man—whether the constitution 
extent that, although thriving best under certain 
favourable circumstances, they may be made to 
bear, with uninjured health, the conditions of a 
different, often a less genial, climate. 
The F. rench are in great measure answerable 
and given a long duration of time with careful 
selection, the thing seems feasible, but we must 
not delude ourselves into the idea that any 
great results can be obtained suddenly. What a 
pleasant nim it is to fancy our pleasure- 
ounds vocal with acclimatised canaries 
pasen we were once assured, was shortly to 
happen ; our orchards yielding Hesperian fruit 
on branches clothed with epiphytal Orchids ; 
humming-birds hovering over clumps of open- 
ground Gardenias; our elephant stock inde- 
pendent of noble savages tamed by the wiles of 
old-entrapped females; апа, our labourers 
enjoying 
really happy Suis, thanks а the 
Bananas, and : їп 
апаа 
p or hcec ago aha: world’s ex- 
pectations in this matter rM probably more 
ende than they are at present ; 
rs made have not been crowned with the 
в ее So lately as 1861 the 
) 
fourth edition of M. ISIDORE GEOFFROY SAINT 
HILAIRE'S book, Acclimatation et Domestica- 
tion des Animaux Utiles, brought the water 
into our mou 
possession of a few individuals, but the easy 
мөр ос, of the or the ra 
nt of increasing "e productive 
resources ар а people. But up to the date of 
the siege of Paris, the gardens me the Société 
Páblopique d'Acclimatatión had proved them- 
selves to be ornamental and agreeable rather 
than XAR or effectual to promote the object 
propo 
All dique know that, for many individual 
species of plants, there is a limiting degree o 
temperature below which, although they may 
continue to live, they cease to do well. Instances 
ped hothouse plants, nor are the 
eless, B. fuchsioides and 
constitutions in that respect—they remain ex- 
actly what they were from the first. True, it 
may be said that they are both of them mostly 
propagated by extension, and that the acclima- 
tator thereby loses the chance of obtaining 
robuster constitutions in seedling plants. Again, 
by crossing with hardier species, an offspring 
more hardy than the one parent at least may be 
expected, but this change can hardly be said to 
be a y changa in. ihe орада]. spaeiem»- ' 
į | seed, in. climates cooler than those needed to 
mature the special products in which their value 
consists. Familiar examples a e Vine and 
Tobacco—one generally multiplied by cuttings, 
the other always ed, one 
ancient, the other not new. It would b 
desirable to make them yield those special pro- 
ducts wherever they will live and grow. Yet 
neither the efforts of man, nor the plastic force 
of Nature, maray unknown influence which we 
designate as “ chance,” has produced a variety 
of Vine or Tobacco which will supply, in high 
latitudes or under cloudy skies, wine or cigars 
of equal flavour and perfume to those of Cuba 
or the Cóte d'Or of Burgundy. The plants 
grow well enough, and seem BE resigned 
to their se жег but sti e exiles, n ot 
yet sufficien 
lands to а their joy and contentment by 
the same чова АА as they 
нча hom 
ice 
си + ahrenheit and o? Centigrade) draws а 
marked line between the plants which can sup- 
port it and those which cannot. Below tha! 
perature plants differ greatly in their powers 
of resistance to frost. Verbenas, Heliotropes, 
and Potatos, are singed by cold which does not 
immediately or visibly affect Zonal Pelargo- 
niums and the common Tropzolums. With а 
slight further drop, they also succumb. But 
the acclimatator, although he has this small 
degree of positive hardiness to help him to 
begin witb, has not hitherto changed either the 
Ricinus or the old garden Nasturtium from 
annuals into hardy perennials, as they are at 
home, t as they ought to be here if his pre- 
tensions are founded on fact 
Duro plants ih tely confined to 
the warmer side of the freezing fretis there 
are many which, long before they reach or even 
approach it, languish a and die of cold; they 
have no need of frost to give them their finish- 
ert 
| roden 
reser A mere 
ing stroke; they are chilblained, and perish 
quietly, tubos flagging circulation and en. 
feebled vitality. a motion, s 
TYN 
plexed at first whether to call them phas 
or greenhouse plants, hothouse being often pre- 
ferred for safety’s sake. New plan 
his great disappointment to be hothouse, 
times very hothouse. Were acclimatisation 
a reality, the remedy ought not to be far to 
seek ; losses would be fewer and remediable, 
At present they are numerous and certain, when- 
ever the mistake of misjudging a plant’s native 
conditions has been made. No power can 
compel the plant to change them, any more 
than any number of men can force an unwilling 
horse to drink. 
In every case, the truth of a theory or 
system must be tested by the results obtained, 
Have the fruits corresponded with the promises? | 
? 
The cockroach, arriving yesterday from India 
in a passenger’s luggage, resists our Climate 
as well as the cockroach whose ancestors | 
ЕЗ been domiciled in Great Britain for gent- 
southern hemisphere, which are still more - 
easily killed by cold. On the other hand, | 
Dielytra, с Weigelia, Forsythia, and 
other welcome strangers, proved perfectly hardy - 
with us from the very outset; there was no- 
acclimatisation in the plain and correct mean- 4 
ing of the word. The plants showed at once of - 
what dep were capable, and have not since - 
deviated from what they then showed by a single - : 
degree of the thermometer, | 
This, and the like, is what Nature, ET = : 
natural inborn energies of organisms, have - 
done. Let us now note a few things W which 
ccli tion has failed to t It has not 
given us an addition to our poultry yards, 12 - 
curassows and guans, although the latter at - 
Vd 
ame and domestic as birds can be; T 
reared as curiosities, 
as commercial helps; it has not made CO - 
BETT'S corn the staff of life; it раз! not given us 
eland flesh as butchers meat, nor filled the 
market with tapir sausages ; it not sup- 
Раа бе shepherd's dog by а most clevet 
t 
of тоо Ib, Acclimatisation has pe made Мен 
matised the Potato. 
facts, may we not be pe permitted 
whether the process which we 
