36 On Acclimatizing Plants at Biel, in East Lothian. 



Pittosporum Tobira, from China, has lived several winters 

 in an open border at about eight or nine feet distance from a 

 high wall with a west aspect, where the sun does not shine on 

 it till after 10 o'clock in the morning. It first opens its flowers 

 in May, and these continue several weeks. 



In the spring of 1816, 1 planted out several plants of Broad- 

 leaved Myrtle under a south wall, which is trellised, and six 

 feet high ; at the north side, or back, is a terrace, so that the 

 wall is filled up behind with earth to its top, or nearly so. 

 This wall is thirty six feet long ; it is wholly covered with 

 Myrtles, and the before mentioned Lycium Afrum. The earth 

 in which they all grow so well, is fine sandy loam, only ten or 

 twelve inches in depth, on a clay bottom. At the approach 

 of hard weather, I cover their roots with moss, and the whole 

 wall of plants two good mats thick, which protection is quite 

 sufficient for them through the most severe winter. These 

 Myrtles flower every year, and in dry summers as plentifully 

 as Hawthorns ; last year they flowered from July till the frost 

 came. They then yielded ripe seeds, which I sowed in a 

 rather small pot of sandy earth in April, and several plants 

 were produced, all at present thriving well. This is, I sup- 

 pose, a rare occurrence in a climate where our latitude is 

 described to be 55° 55'. 



I think it right to observe, that I have no assistance in any 

 way, by fires, flues, or stoves, &c. as is the case in many other 

 places. The various reputed green-house plants which grow 

 in open borders here, would require much space to name. 



Several kinds of plants which will not stand our winters 

 abroad, and which readily strike root from the cuttings, may 

 be put in a pot, eight or ten together, and protected in winter. 



