FREEZING. Ill 



its effects, but all attempts at investigating their causes have proved 

 eminerLtly unsuccessful. That a low temperature, or frost, acts 

 differently upon different plants very nearly allied to each other is 

 notorious ; and this even where they are mere varieties of each other. 

 The China Rose, for iastance, resists any amount of English cold ; the 

 variety called the Tea-scented perishes, or suffers severely, in every 

 ordmary winter. The gay-flowered Senecios of the Canaries, known in 

 gardens under the name of Cinerarias, shrink from the mere approach 

 of frost, and perish upon its first arrival ; yet the Ragworts, and Mug- 

 worts, and Groundsels, all equally Senecios, can bear a Russian winter. 

 In like manner Oaks, Chesnuts, Conifers, exhibit similar differences ia 

 their power of resisting frost. 



It has been suggested that the fluids contained in different species of 

 plants may themselves act differently in the presence of cold; just as 

 oil of turpentine requires a temperature of 14° to freeze, while oil of 

 Bergamot freezes at 23°, and Olive oil at 36°. But although this may 

 be true to a limited extent, yet it by no means explains the phenomenon 

 in question. The plant x,. for instance, perishes from frost, while 

 another, identical with it in nature, lives with impunity within two 

 yards of it, both having been exposed to the same temperature. In 

 this case the fluids of the two will be chemically the same, and yet the 

 results are opposite. Again., the Long-leaved Pine (P. longifolia) is 

 quite tender, while the Gerard Pine, exceedingly like it, is hardy ; in 

 this case there is no ground for supposing that the fluids contained in 

 these species are different. In fact, except that all plants suffer from 

 cold in proportion to the quantity of water they contain, we have no 

 kind, of evidence to show that the quality of their fluids has any 

 material influence upon their power of resisting cold; for it is by no 

 means true, as some Joo hastily assert, that resinous trees, like Conifers, 

 are rendered hardy by the resin they contain ; the Norfolk Island Pine 

 and the Malay Dammar are tender, although both resinous and 

 coniferous. 



In this, as in so many other hortioiHtural questions, the diffleulty of 

 the subject vanishes when we desist from a vain search after im- 

 diseoverables. It is by attempting to explain every phenomenon of life 

 by the known laws of chemistry, electricity, and similar agencies, that 

 we plunge into a labyrinth of perplexity — 



"And find no end, in ■wandering mazes lost." 



But the moment we admit the presence everywhere among all plants 

 of a vital principle, and thus recognise a direct analogy between plants 

 and animals, the principle of life in the two kingdoms being identical, 

 but differently manifested, then we tread on the firm ground consoli- 

 dated by the march of ages, and find in the experience of animal 



