THE NATURALIZATION OF EXOTICS. 
63 
meriting upon. Independently of the facility with which they may be protected, 
their inferior value, and the smaller space they occupy ; they can accommodate 
themselves, with less difficulty, to any peculiarities of climate than older specimens, 
and their habits will be more completely conformed to the circumstances in which 
they are placed. It is indispensable that the seeds be germinated without the 
application of, or with as little as possible, artificial heat ; and that they be inured 
to the open air for some time previous to transplantation. 
If specimens that have been raised from cuttings, and kept for years in the 
greenhouse, are desired to be acclimatized, it will be prudent to employ those 
which have been subjected to the greatest variations of temperature, and, in all 
respects, least carefully tended, and to expose them freely, for months or years, 
before their final removal to the ordinary atmospheric influences; since their danger 
from cold, while in a pot, will be very much less than after they are planted 
out, and the measure will be an excellent preliminary to their more thorough 
liberation. 
A point to which little attention appears to have been given, but which is of 
the utmost moment, is the season of transplantation. We have frequently seen 
individuals, of considerable standing in the profession, plant tender shrubs in the 
flower borders during the autumnal months ; and, as if to aggravate the impropriety, 
they have often been large specimens, which had been retained through the summer 
in the greenhouse. The consequence of such a step might have been anticipated : 
the plants invariably died in the ensuing winter, when the weather was severe. 
Experience has demonstrated to us that, by transferring a greenhouse plant to the 
borders at that period, a new development will be immediately induced, which for 
want of due light and heat to ripen it, is unavoidably destroyed by winds or frost. 
For planting out all kinds of exotics, whatever may be their size, the only 
reasonable or defensible period is the early spring ; i. <?., the last week in March or 
the first in April. If planted later, they will have begun to make a feeble progress ; 
whereas it will be easy to cover them with a mat, or, when very small, an inverted 
garden-pot, should cold weather follow. Throughout the winter before, they must 
be kept in a cold-pit or frame without fire heat, and sheltered solely from sharp 
frosts. It is especially to be desired that they be in no way stimulated to begin 
their growth sooner than the natural season. 
After planting, it will be as necessary to guard them from the cutting winds 
that occasionally occur as from spring frosts ; and at no stage of their progress will 
they require so much care as in the first year ; during which it will be perceived 
that while water can readily be supplied by hand, no ingenuity can displace it 
from the soil, or deter the plants from imbibing it too profusely if it superabounds. 
Hence the value of the drainage, &c., already suggested. 
To protect the plants on which we have been disserting, numerous expedients 
are resorted to by different individuals. Garden mats, baskets of wicker-work, 
straw hurdles, and other methods meet with supporters according to the predilections 
