48 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to be attended with success in the management of the Kumquat, 

 I have one or two observations to make on artificial cultivation 

 generally, which I regard as most important. I believe that a 

 knowledge of climate and other circumstances relating to a plant's 

 natural habitat is of the first importance if we would be successful 

 in its cultivation in this country. An allwise Providence lias 

 formed the animals and plants of our globe for those situations 

 on the earth's surface on which they have been placed. The 

 Indians, the Malays, or the Chinese flourish under the rays of a 

 fierce sun which would prove fatal to the inhabitants of a more 

 northerly climate. Some plants, as the fir tribe, flourish on the 

 mountains or hill-sides, while others, of which rice is an example, 

 must be grown in water. The Cocoa Palm is always found on 

 land near the sea-shore. The Banyan tree luxuriates under a 

 tropical sun, but would perish in a country like ours. Then, 

 again, the plants of cool or temperate countries require a cold 

 winter, when they can shed their leaves and have a season of rest. 

 The period of rest required by plants in certain tropical countries, 

 such as Bengal, for example, is not given them by cold, but by 

 heat, and by the dryness of the atmosphere. 



And, to give only one example of the natural law (for I might 

 give many more), I may mention a class of plants whose nature it 

 is to be in a climate which is warm and moist all the year round. 

 The Mangosteen, which has justly been called " the king of 

 fruit," the Nutmeg, and many other productions indigenous to the 

 islands of the Eastern archipelago, will only succeed in such a 

 climate as we find in that part of the world. It is always summer 

 there, and rain falls in heavy showers almost every day throughout 

 the year. 



Here, then, is a wide field for study in which our practical hor- 

 ticulturists would do well to labour. Por what do we really find 

 if we enter an ordinary hot-house in some of our English gardens ? 

 "We find plants of most of the countries to which I have alluded, which 

 have been formed for, and which occupy, situations on the earth's 

 surface so widely different, crowded together in one house, where 

 they are treated much in the same manner as if their nature and 

 requirem ents w r ere all of a like character. Need we wonder at the 

 results of such treatment ? Some, no doubt, succeed ; others 

 struggle on for a while, then lose their distinctive character, be- 

 come drawn up and weakly, and eventually resent the unnatural 

 treatment by dying out altogether. It is to this unnatural mode 



