34 ACCLIMATATION. 
In future he was fully resolved to sow none but Scotch-grown 
seed, which produced plants far hardier than those from 
foreign seed, and in the event of a failure of Scotch seed, 
he would be obliged to purchase young seedling plants 
raised in a better climate than that which his grounds pos- 
sessed. 
Most people acquainted with the commonest operations in 
gardening, have experienced the great difference in cauli- 
flower plants subjected to the influence of cold during winter, 
compared to those protected in a higher temperature. Even 
our hardiest weeds that spring up under glass, in a higher 
temperature, suffer greatly when exposed to the severity of 
the weather in the open ground. This influence, which is 
so perceptible in the succulent plants of a season, is, with 
respect to trees, assuredly transmissible by seed to their future 
generations; and it is reasonable to suppose that that hardi- 
ness, or tenderness, will be more or less fixed, according 
to the length of time, or the number of former generations 
during which the tree had been subjected to such tempera- 
ture. 
Great are the advantages of international commerce in many 
commodities ; yet it is to be feared that the importation of 
the seeds of plants that are required to stand in exposed situa- 
tions is not destined to benefit either our forests or our fields. 
Whatever may be the fate of annuals or the crops of a season, 
that law in nature which I have experienced to stamp its in- 
fluence so deeply on the trees of the forest, may be expected 
to be impressed at least on the perennial and biennial plants 
of the field.1 Of course it cannot be expected that plants 
under the most skilful precautions will be exempt from frost 
or the casualties of seasons. The hardiest indigenous plants 
sometimes suffer, but generally their recovery is speedily 
effected by seasonable weather. 
1 “The unfortunate circumstance which attends clover is its being ex- 
tremely apt to fail in districts where it has been long a common article of 
cultivation, The land, to use the farmers’ term, ‘ becomes sick of it.’ 
After harvest he has a fine plant, but by March or April half or perhaps more 
of it is dead.”— Farmer's Calendar, p. 155. 
