33 
ON ACCLIMATISING GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 
The theory of acclimatising plants was but little thought of prior to 1 823, when 
a paper upon the subject appeared in the "Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural 
Society," by Mr. Street, of Biel. Since that time many experiments have been 
made upon a great variety of plants, and opinions have been freely offered both for 
and against the doctrine ; but nothing yet very satisfactory has come under our 
observation to lead us to think otherwise than that many plants, natives of warmer 
climates, are nevertheless constitutionally hardy enough to resist the ordinary winters 
of our climate, and others, when subjected to the experiment, accommodate them- 
selves to it in a greater or lesser degree. Many plants, natives of China and Japan, 
are sufficiently hardy to defy the severest frosts we have of late years experienced ; 
while others from the same extensive empire require even the heat of the stove to 
grow them in perfection. Collectors and importers have for the most part contented 
themselves with stating simply that such and such plants were found in China or 
Japan, without stating the latitude, longitude and altitude, and the local circum- 
stances under which the plant flourished. 
In countries extending over so great a surface as those alluded to, there is a 
great variety of climate, and hence we find the Aucuba japonica, Corchorus 
japonica, Pceonia Moutan, papaveracea, Pyrus japonica, Thea viridis, Thea Bohea, 
Mespelis japonica, and many others, which in the earlier days of our own experience 
we knew only as greenhouse plants, now cultivated as some of the most common 
shrubbery plants, while Clerodendron squamatum and fragrans, with many others 
from the same country, still require the care and temperature of our stoves. The 
same, but to a much greater extent, may be said of the plants of Chili and Mexico, 
and other countries of great extent and great difference of altitude. 
It is, we therefore see, too often left to the cultivator at home, to determine the 
habits of newly-imported plants, and in general, to err on what may be called the 
safe side, they are placed in a temperature corresponding to nearly the maximum of 
the country from whence they came, whilst they actually existed, naturally, near to 
the limits of perpetual snow. Under such treatment the plants often languish out a 
few months, or perhaps a year or two, and finally die. 
On this interesting subject we would recommend a perusal of " An Essay on 
the Geographical Distribution of Plants, " by N. I. Winch, Esq., from which we 
have taken the following paragraph, which will, we think, proves that the hardiness 
of a plant does not depend on the temperature of its native country. 
" There appears something enigmatical in the causes which affect the growth of 
many exotic shrubs well known in gardens and plantations ; for many natives of the 
North of Asia, Portugal, Japan, and even of South America, resist the severity of 
our winters much better than many which are indigenous in Italy, the South of 
VOL. XIV. NO. CLVIII. F 
