INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
63 
respect to the ratio of heat or cold which prevails in any province throughout 
each month of the year. By this means, not only are the mean temperature and 
either or both extremes obtained, but the periodical duration or prevalence of the 
several modifications is indicated ; and we are enabled to arrive at correct conclu- 
sions relative to the capability of the vegetation of that province to naturalize 
itself in any others of which we possess a similar knowledge. Other information 
is useful, but this alone is entirely divested of vagueness, and reduced to an 
appreciable and available form. Even in this case, however, we shall be liable 
to error if we neglect to take into consideration the difference between the diurnal 
and nocturnal temperature, and the average duration of each. 
Few travellers seem to have thought such information worth acquirement ; and 
probably still fewer have ever allowed their observations to transpire. This is 
perhaps owing, in some degree, to the little attention hitherto bestowed upon the 
subject by those to whom such communications would alone be valuable — the 
cultivators of plants. Strange as it may and does appear, the latter class prefer 
ascertaining the constitution of a plant, with regard to its capability of enduring 
cold, by experiments requiring years of tedious investigation, and which frequently 
occasion disappointment by the repeated destruction of their subject, to a few 
hours 1 study of the memoranda of travellers on the temperature of its native 
climate. 
It is true that we are at present destitute of the requisite intelligence concern- 
ing many districts ; but if cultivators would evince greater aptitude to appropriate 
and employ what we already possess, and thus stimulate collectors to furnish more 
ample accounts of the variations of temperature in every district from which they 
procure specimens, it is confidently believed that the practices both of acclimata- 
tion and general cultivation might be based upon such solid and unwavering prin- 
ciples, that there would not be an explored tract throughout the entire globe, on 
the vegetation of which we should not know precisely what treatment to bestow, 
the moment the plant and the description of its parent country were received. 
We entreat attention to these statements from all persons interested in the pro- 
motion of either horticultural or agricultural art ; and call upon them to assist, by 
every means in their power, in the attainment of the desideratum herein displayed. 
Our expectations from this source may appear too sanguine to some, and perhaps 
altogether chimerical to others ; but we are thoroughly persuaded that authentic 
accounts of the particular atmospheric mutations in every district to which plants 
cultivated or wished to be cultivated in this or any other country are indigenous, 
would, if properly estimated, — carefully compared with the known peculiarities 
of the climate in which they are desired to be grown, and judiciously appro- 
priated and applied, — at once put an end to all uncertainties and conjectures 
that are now entertained respecting their habits, and effect little less than a com- 
plete revolution in the culturist's interesting and important practice. 
(To be continued.) 
