192 DRYNESS IMPORTANT TO RIPENING. 



The dryness of the atmosphere, which proves so fatal to 

 plants when in a state of growth, is, when accompanied by 

 warmth, of the greatest importance to them while ripening their 

 fruit. Together with the high temperature of the soil, it is 

 this which causes so great a difference in the quality of the 

 same kinds of fruit ripened in the South and the North. The 

 excellence of Syrian Apricots is not approachable in England. 

 The Grapes of the Mediterranean shore are only equalled in 

 England in the best managed hothouses, when sun heat and 

 artificial heat are skilfully employed to dry as well as warm the 

 air, at the season of ripening. The richest and strongest wines 

 in the world are those of Hungary, which, according to 

 Wahlenberg, owe their excellence to the great dryness of the 

 autumnal climate of the vaUey of the Theiss. Dryness of the 

 air then, which is fatal to plants in a rapid state of growth, is 

 in the highest degree beneficial when their functions are limited 

 to the consolidation of tissues already formed and the elabora- 

 tion of their final secretions. In the open air in England, the 

 ripening process is usually incomplete, and hence the 

 inability of plants from the United States, and other countries 

 with hot autumns, to bear with us a winter far less severe than 

 that which is natural to them. 



Nothing can iEustrate this truth in a more striking manner than the 

 follcwing statement by the late Sir Augustus Poster. Writing from 

 Genoa he says : — " Being under the impression that single Orange or 

 Lemon-trees, or rows and groups of Orange or Lemon-trees, might 

 with care be brought to grow out of the groimd in England 

 like other plants, I have thought it might be worth while to 

 mention the success which has now for several years attended a 

 plantation that I made of seven Orange-trees in a much colder climate, 

 in the garden of my country residence, on the lull of Turin, facing the 

 highest range of the Alps. I was led to make the experiment from 

 having by accident, in the jBrst year of my arrival at Turin, seen the 

 way in which the Orange-trees in boxes were treated in the cellars of a 

 Piedmontese nobleman's house during winter, where they were placed 

 for several months, without light, or heat, or water, and exposed to severe 

 cold which almost every winter reaches to — 12° or even — 16° of 

 Eeaxtmite's thermometer (+5° to 4° Pahr.). My group of Orange-trees 

 were taken out of boxes, and planted in earth prepared for the purpose, 

 in the year 1826. In the very severe winter of 1828-9, three of them 



