360 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
to be so high a compliment, that my vanity perhaps got the 
better of my discretion, and I could not refuse an invitation so 
gracefully tendered. I knew, moreover, that I might count upon 
your indulgence to a mere amateur without any pretension to 
scientific knowledge, who in riding his hobby has often stumbled 
and met with not a few falls, and whose misadventures might 
possibly save others from tripping against the like stones of 
•offence. 
There have been days, many days, during the past winter 
(1894- 5) when I doubted whether this paper would ever be 
witten ; whether, indeed, there could possibly be such a thing 
as a Bamboo hardy in this country. But it is remarkable that 
out of an ordeal which burnt up such native plants as Gorse and 
Ivy, Holly, Junipers, and even Yews ; which killed old-established 
;and apparently thoroughly acclimatised Bay-trees, Portugal 
Laurels, and other evergreen shrubs, and wiped off the face of the 
earth Pampas grass of thirty years' standing, certain species of 
Bamboos should have emerged almost scatheless, while of forty- 
four varieties planted out in the open there is not one the roots 
of which have not proved their vitality by sending up new shoots 
even where the old ones have been cut back to the ground. 
Some individual plants, indeed, feebler than their neighbours, 
have succumbed, but that, as I shall presently endeavour to show, 
was owing to errors committed in the planting. There is no 
single species of those which I shall enumerate which has 
•entirely failed. The severity of the last winter has thus rendered 
us one signal service by demonstrating that with proper care at 
the outset we have at our disposal a new element of beauty and 
grace which will resist the severest weather of the average 
]\Iidland climate. 
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the bitter months of 
January and February 1895 came as a severe blow upon plants 
which had already been sorely tried by a succession of seasons 
ill adapted to the requirements of Bamboos. In the summer of 
1893 WO had an exceptional drought; this was followed by a 
more than usually cold winter. Then came the wet, sunless 
summer of 189], and an autumn which lasted until tlio end of 
December, when the sudden chock came, killing back the wealc, 
overgrown shoots of Roses and other climbers. It would be 
.difTicult to imagine conditions more unfavourable tlian those 
