478 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
degree of frost. The obvious conclusion to be drawn 
from this is, not that peach trees are not hardy, but 
under certain conditions are not hardy ; which facts lead 
to this theory, that the habits of plants admit of a 
certain degree of change with regard to the climate 
which they will bear; that the degree in which this 
power exists in any plant, is only to be ascertained by 
experiment, by trying in the open air plants usually 
considered as tender, or which hitherto have been kept 
under glass. 
Our usual method of acclimatizing a plant, is to select 
some very protected and shady spot, as the north side 
of a thicket, or what we prefer, the interior of some 
evergreen wood, and to prepare the holes six feet wide 
and three deep, w r ith loose but poor soil, well drained 
with stones for the lower eight or ten inches, with 
barely compost enough to assist the tree through the 
summer. For the first two or three years in winter, 
a little mound of earth, eight or ten inches high, is 
put around the neck of the plant, to prevent the bad 
effects of thawing and freezing in a most sensitive part, 
and cedar or hemlock boughs, are placed round its 
branches ; this covering diminishing year by year, as 
the tree obtains size and vigor, until it is omitted 
altogether. The plant, to ensure safety, is moved once 
or twice 'within this wood, each time to a more exposed 
situation, 'which has also the additional advantage (like 
root pruning) of checking all redundancy of growth. 
"When it exhibits sufficient strength, it is transplanted 
to its final situation on the lawn — its cedar covering 
being renewed for a couple of 'winters — and, if it can 
be reconciled to the climate, it is now supposed to 
be so. 
We have found it very perplexing to arrive at any 
thorough and satisfactory decision as to comparative 
hardihood of trees in different portions of the United 
States, from its being so difficult to reconcile the appa- 
