231 
winter, by getting naturally into as dry a condition as circum- 
stances will permit. But the only means we possess of 
effecting this consists in choosing a thoroughly well drained 
soil, and an elevated situation ; the first preventing a plant 
filling itself with moisture during winter, or over-growing 
itself in summer, so as to be unable to ripen its wood; and 
the latter securing it from the action of those early frosts of 
autumn, or late frosts of spring, which are so pernicious 
even to our own wild trees. In an elevated situation, a 
plant also escapes the risk of being stimulated into growth by 
a few days’ warmth, succeeded by nipping cold, which so often 
occurs in our variable climate. This was very remarkable in 
the hard winter of 1837-38, when so many exotics perished: 
on that occasion the Araucaria Fir was killed in warm and 
sheltered valleys, but stood unscathed on the hills of Hamp- 
shire ; and all over the country the same fact was remarked 
in other species. 
AVhere perfect drainage cannot be secured, it is scarcely 
worth attempting to naturalise an exotic tree; for, in the first 
place, it cannot ripen its wood — and secondly, the water that 
surrounds the roots in winter is absorbed by them incessantly, 
and gradually gorges the branches so as to render them sus- 
ceptable of an amount of cold which would be unfelt in a drier 
state. On the other hand, we find that wherever great success 
has attended the preservation of tender plants in the open air 
during many years, it is invariably connected with a soil 
completely deprived of its superfluous moisture, either by 
nature or art. 
In selecting the station in which an exotic should be planted, 
it will always be found better that the place should be shaded 
than exposed to the full influence of the sun. One reason is, 
that a plant, even if frozen hard, may be recovered if it thaws 
very gradually, although it will certainly perish if the thaw is 
sudden. Now in a southern aspect a plant is in the most disad- 
vantageous position pos.sible with respect to this circumstance. 
We received the other day from Owston, near Doncaster, a 
branch of the tender shining-leaved variety of Laurestinus, 
which has lived for many years in a situation where it never 
sees the sun for an instant in the course of the year, and it 
stands frosts which are fatal to tlie same species elsewhere in 
216, AXICTiElCM. 
