xiv 



INTRODUCTION. 



thriving on a light and well drained soil. Lastly, M. Duchartre 

 notices the same facts in France, M. Morean having recorded that 

 trees and shrubs as well as fruit-trees remaining intact on dry 

 sandy ground, while others suffered severely, perishing even to the 

 ground in humid places. For particular remarks the reader is 

 referred to Index to Miscellaneous Matters, 5. v. Soil. 



Subterranean frost and delayed evidence of injuries. A cause 

 of serious injury which has been too little investigated is the inequality 

 of resistance to frost which the subterranean parts of plants possess ; 

 not only,as M. Duchartre observes for different species or varieties, but 

 also for different individuals of even the same species or variety. 

 Sometimes the roots have perished, at other times they and the sub- 

 terranean portion of the stem have alone survived, while the aerial 

 parts succumbed. 



In our Reports, numerous cases are recorded of plants being " killed 

 to the ground." This is generally understood to mean that the roots 

 and rootstock have survived, as in many cases they are described as 

 shooting forth again on the return of warm weather. On the other 

 hand cases are recorded of trees apparently healthy in March, April 

 or May which have then more or less suddenly collapsed. This seems 

 to show that the whole tree received so severe a shock that it was 

 only existing for a time at the expense of the living tissues of the 

 aerial portion ; and when these were exhausted the plant perished. 



An interesting case of the death of Peach trees in May, 1860, is 

 recorded in the Gardeners Chronicle (p. 481) for that year, upon 

 which the editor remarks (p. 501) — " The trees in question, &c, grew 

 on a S.W. wall ; they must therefore, in so warm a place, have had 

 their sap rising after the ground, heated to 65°, had been soaked 

 with rain. Under such circumstances a sudden fall of temperature 

 to 17° or 15° below freezing could not fail to give a shock to the 

 constitution of so tender a tree as the Peach, from which it would 

 never recover," The writer adds the following case — " Two young 

 and vigorous Peach trees, of the double Chinese kinds, appeared to 

 have escaped the injury of October, their branches were plump and 

 healthy, except at the points. They received a winter pruning and 

 pushed as usual in the spring j but shortly afterwards the shoots be- 

 gan to droop and wither ; one is now dead to the ground and the 

 other following it. In this case, as it probably was in others, the sap 

 vessels of the stem were killed ; and it was only when they were 



