lay 14, 1904. 
Fhe Gardening World 
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aid Greenhouse,” page 387. Some of j 
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Views and Reviews. 
To Test the Hardiness of Plants. 
. The advent of the refri aerator in gardeni- 
• . . c o 
mg brought with it more than, one new in¬ 
dustry, or in other cases helped to develop 
old ones by making new practices possible. 
There is another use for the refrigerator, 
which, so' far as we know, has not been 
attempted in. this country, and that is to 
test the relative hardiness of plants. In- 
stead of waiting for a severe winter to test 
newly-introduced plants, and even for the 
purpose of weeding out the tender ones in 
beds of seedlings, we think this might, bei 
accomplished in a much shorter time by 
utilising the refrigerator. What we should 
advise is to build a glasshouse suitable for 
refrigeration plant, so that seedlings and 
even older-established plants might be tested 
at once for their relative hardiness. 
We recommend a glass structure, or, in, 
ether words, a greenhouse, fitted up' as for 
plant growing, and connected with refrigerat¬ 
ing machinery. Here the plant to be tested 
should be put. in the house either in pots or 
established on benches, so that the temperar 
Jure might be lowered by the refrigerator to 
any given degree for the pui-pose of ascer¬ 
taining which of tliei plants are able to sur¬ 
vive at that degree of temperature. After 
the tender ones are killed off the remaining 
and live ones might be subjected to a lower 
temperature, which would probably result in, 
killing off all but the hardiest individuals. 
By such means we should be able to deter¬ 
mine which plants were able to live out of 
doors in our climate or in certain parts of 
the country where the mean temperature 
would be some known degree. The plants 
that outlived the lowest degree that wa are 
likely to get in this country might be pro¬ 
nounced hardy in any part of Britain,. 
Such a plant house must, necessarily be one 
entirely given up 1 to experiment. It would 
not, therefore, necessarily be erected in 
private gardens, unless some philanthropic 
lover of plants conceived the idea of erecting 
a, testing station, as the late Sir John La was 
did at Rothamsted, on behalf of agriculture. 
Very few would necessarily require to use 
such a house, and if, ought to be done by 
some separate society or organisation. As 
the Royal Horticultural Society has under 
consideration the carrying out of experiments 
of a scientific nature at Wisley, a testing 
house would be well worthy of their con¬ 
sideration. 
Such a house should always be in working 
order for the benefit of tliei country at large, 
and the testing of the hardiness of plants 
might well be carried out as regularly as the 
testing of seeds for their germinating power. 
Such a house would certainly be an interest¬ 
ing onei in, proportion to the number of the 
experiments being carried on there. There 
are so many questions, to test in connection 
with cultivated plants that the matter would 
not be' onei merely of scientific interest, but 
would be of practical and utilitarian service. 
The E.H.S. already can claim a century of 
useful work in the interests of gardening and 
the popularising of horticulture generally, 
whether of use or interest, so that it would 
seem the most likely body to, undertake an 
experiment station of this character. 
Whether a, plant lives or dies under certain 
conditions depends largely on whether the 
atmosphere! and the soil arei diy or wet,, and 
also' the duration of frost. If any such house 
were built, it ought to' be divided into two on- 
more compartments, so that the atmosphere 
of one might be kept, dry while another was 
kept at saturation point. Tliei same condi¬ 
tions might be applied to the soil, and, as 
the conditions are usually contemporaneous 
in a state of nature, a moist atmosphere and 
wet, soil should be made the conditions of 
one compartment. The' soil would get frozen, 
provided the temperature' was lowered to 
such a degree, and the wet soil would cer¬ 
tainly freeze more deeply or to a greater 
extent than a diy one. 
We might enumerate some of the advan¬ 
tages by thus determining the hardiness of 
plants by artificial and scientific means. In 
the first place, the relative hardiness of a 
large number of plants could be decided 
within a few days. The advantage of this 
would be evident, by enabling the grower to 
plant out newly-imported things as soon as 
he was able to get iqj a stock, assured that 
he would not be likely to lose them in the 
event of the succeeding winter being a severe 
one. Private growers who wish to possess 
these things 1 , provided they were assured of 
the hardiness, would then be able to plant at 
once, instead of waiting for many years till a 
chance severe winter should give them the 
desired information. This' would not apply 
merely to perennial plants, but to trees and 
shrubs which usually require a good many 
years to' get disseminated over the country, 
owing to the uncertainty of their hardiness. 
