184 
INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
stunted habit of growth is the surest method of acclimatizing plants. If once the 
natural luxuriance of any species is attempted, whether immediately or within 
several years after its being planted, its wood will never be ripened, in a few years 
it will become weak and sickly, and there is every probability of its ultimate loss, 
because in such a state, it will require greater and more durable protection than can 
possibly be afforded. 
All the bad consequences here specified inevitably attend a too humid situation 
and soil. A less moist compartment in a wiclfe-spreading vale, but effectually 
sheltered and shaded either by trees or artificial erections, is equally inappropriate 
with that to which we have just objected ; and from the same as well as additional 
causes. Besides giving encouragement to excessive moisture, it deprives the plants 
of a condition which is quite essential to their perfect development. Nearly all 
half-hardy shrubs flourish beneath a far more vigorous emanation of both light and 
heat from solar sources, than we could allow them in our most prominent and 
unincumbered districts. By contracting, or in any way infringing this supply, 
we of course, and to precisely the same extent, diminish their produce, and 
prejudicially affect their health. 
Notwithstanding, then, the too frequent practice of forming plantations to shelter 
tender plants, we would press upon all who are desirous of naturalizing the most 
beautiful of European, Australian, and other exotics, to place them where nothing 
can impede or subdue the action of any atmospheric elements, rain and its various 
modifications alone excepted. Permanent shelter of every kind is injudicious, 
unnecessary, and even hurtful. That effected by plantations of trees is the 
more common mode ; but, as many of these must be deciduous, the plants are most 
protected at a time when there is not the slightest need for any such interference. 
And in the winter, if frosts are so severe as to occasion danger, it is as easy to apply 
artificial shelter according to our proposed system, as it would be in the case of 
which we have been complaining ; nor, all circumstances duly weighed, would 
there be any greater necessity for it, or for a more abundant application. 
While we denounce so unqualifiedly the general method of providing any fixed 
material for averting cold, we must cautiously guard against the opposite extreme, 
for reasons heretofore delivered. The top of an extremely elevated piece of ground, 
unless it be of considerable circuit and tolerably free from irregularities, would be 
a highly dangerous spot for cultivating tender species. The upper verge of any 
declivity, however slight, is equally objectionable. In short, a nearly level, dry, 
thoroughly exposed plot, of only a moderate altitude, and, if on a plain, at a 
proper distance from rivers, lakes, or other large bodies of water, will, with regard 
to temperature and its dependent or concomitant conditions, furnish a situation 
wherein any kinds of plants may, if anywhere, be fully acclimatized. 
{To be concluded in our next.) 
