206 
INFLUENCE OP CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
prove hurtful to vegetation. Some artificial provision to check their violence 
would therefore seem indispensable. 
But besides generating cold, winds are strikingly productive of drought. By 
their continued action upon the earth and its vegetation, they entirely remove all 
superficial moisture, and thus prepare plants for enduring a much greater degree 
of even actual frost. It becomes, therefore, a consideration of great practical import, 
whether the cold which accompanies winds is not at least counterbalanced by their 
tendency to aridity. 
Having, in a former paper, demonstrated the great value of a certain degree of 
dryness to exotic plants, we affirm, with unwavering confidence, that all winds, 
except such as occur during the brief period immediately succeeding the development 
of young shoots, (tliese latter being extremely susceptive of injury at that season, 
not only on account of the imperfection of their structure, but also because they 
need copious and perpetual supplies of fluid,) are rather beneficial than otherwise. 
The keen easterly winds generally experienced in Britain during the early spring 
months, are, consequently, alone to be diverted ; and all who are conversant with 
horticultural pursuits, must sooner or later be convinced that nothing but a covering 
or protective screen to each individual plant, will efi'ectually guard them from the 
withering influence of these pernicious blasts. 
Even spring gales have, however, one good efi*ect, which renders it doubtful 
whether it is most prudent to allow them to take their natural course, or to o&er 
them every possible resistance. They unquestionably mitigate the severity of the 
night-frosts which always attend them ; and which, in not a few instances, would 
inevitably destroy all the young developments of tender plants, were it not for the 
preparative action of those agents. Viewing this question, then, in all its relations, 
we arrive at the following results. Where foreign plants, and those from warmer 
regions, are wished to be acclimatized, a too open spot, with regard to both artificial 
and natural incumbrances, buildings and trees, cannot be selected. If it is disco- 
vered (as in most cases it ultimately will be) that protection is essential in either 
winter or spring, let each specimen have a portable covering to itself; or, where 
the species are allied, and the nature of the ground, the nearness of the specimens, 
and the convenience of the proprietor admit of it, a large screen can be constructed 
of any required dimensions, and employed whenever circumstances may dictate. 
Should these hints be deemed irrelevant and foreign to the asserted subject of 
this dissertation, we beg most distinctly to avow that, in conjunction with those of 
a like nature which have preceded them, and which will be found interspersed 
throughout the whole of these papers, it has been our principal object to inculcate 
and display all such practical deductions. Whatever scientific disquisitions we 
may have attempted, have all been made, either by direct inference or implication, 
subservient to the promotion of floricultural art. This is the great work in which 
we are continually engaged, and to which we hope ever to be found ready, with 
our utmost abilities, to lend a helping hand. 
