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originally the native of a colder climate, though introduced to us through the 
medium of a warm one; as the Gold-tree (Aucuba Japonica), the Moutan 
(Fjeonia Frutescens), and several others. 
In the case of annuals, however, it is probable that much has been done 
by our ancestors, and something by the present generation; but it must be 
remembered, that all that is required in the case of an annual, is to enable 
it to ripen its fruit in a comparatively cold summer, after which, we know 
that the hardest frost has no power to injure the seed, though exposed in 
the open air to its severest influence; but a perennial has to encounter frosts 
with its buds and annual shoots, that have sometimes been so severe with us 
as to rend asunder the trunks of our indigenous forest trees.* 
It is probable that wheat , our principal food at present, did not bring 
its seed to perfection in this climate, till hardened to it by repeated sowings; 
a few years some spring wheat from Gu%erat was sown with barley, in a 
well-cultivated field: it rose, eared, and blossomed, with a healthy appearance; 
but many ears were when ripe wholly without corn, and few brought more 
than three or four grains to perfection. 
Seed is often changed from cold to warm soils, and always with success. 
In this case, the plant may be said to have undergone a change from a cold 
to a more temperate climate; a circumstance of itself almost sufficient to 
insure a crop superior, both in quality and quantity, to what could be 
expected, if seed accustomed to the same soil and climate were continued 
to be sown for a great number of years. 
It is also a common and a very proper practice, to change seed from 
early to late soils, and from a superior to an inferior climate. From the 
natural earliness of such seed, a farmer may delay sowing his fields for ten 
or fifteen days, and at the same time depend upon reaping his crop as soon as 
if he had sown it at the ordinary season with seed that had been long used to 
the soil and climate. By changing seed from early to late soils and climates, 
a farmer frequently has it in his power to obviate the losses and difficulties 
which otherwise are inseparable from a bad seed-season. If the weather 
prove so wet and rainy, during the period when he usually sows his grain, 
as to prevent him from doing so with propriety, and afterwards becomes 
favourable, by procuring seed that comes so much, sooner to maturity, he 
* See Miller’s Dictionary, article Frost, 
