PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 
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characters which they have in wild nature, depends in no small 
degree upon the difference of the circumstances in which they 
grow naturally, and those in which we rear and train them 
artificially. It is true that some plants will bear only a limited 
change, while others admit of change to a very great extent; but 
notwithstanding this, it is a general law in floriculture, that the 
more different treatment it can bear from that which nature gives 
it, the more may it be improved by the cultivator. There is also 
another general principle:—plants, including flowers, evergreens, 
and all others, of what description soever they may be, can bear 
much better to be transported from warm latitudes and situations 
to cold, than from cold to warm. There are two causes for this :— 
in the first place, a plant never produces a flower so long as it can 
effect an increase in that volume of its system in which the flower 
for the period of flowering has its beginning ; and in the second 
place, the artificial treatment which can be best applied is that 
which approximates a transfer to a climate warmer than our own. 
When the plant of a cold climate is taken to a warm one, the 
tendency of it is to run to stem and leaf, and not produce any 
flow'ers at all,—as is the case with the gooseberry trees which have 
been transported from Britain to the island of St. Helena, in 
that island, they have become evergreens, producing no berries 
and few flowers, but extending themselves by the roots, so as to 
form a sort of copses or jungles. In the case of other plants 
removed to warmer climates, the produce of leaf and stem is 
so great that the season of growth is over before they can perfect 
their flowers. On the other hand, when flowers, natives of warm 
latitudes, are transported to colder ones, they have less tendency 
to run to stem and leaf, and more to flowering; still, however, it 
is not the fertile functions which are increased ; it is the adjuncts 
of these—the petals; and it is no uncommon circumstance 
to find the anthers, whose natural office it is to render the flower 
fertile, changed into petals. Indeed this may be said to be the 
case with all double flowers which are obtained by the art of 
the cultivator; and in many instances those double flowers are 
entirely barren, and can be multiplied only by cuttings of the 
original plant. 
These circumstances, however, apply much more to the opera¬ 
tion of climate and seasons upon the plant, than to the soil upon 
which it is grown. In that there must always be considerable 
