AUTUMNAL HUMIDITY. 
41 
Therefore, though a disastrous spring is the season at which 
injury, especially injury to flowers and tender leaves, appears to 
be the most unfortunate, yet such is not, in reality, the case; for 
there are many parts of plants that remain safe at this season, 
however unfavourable, which suffer, and often very severely) during 
other seasons, when the cause of severity appears to be much less. 
When, therefore, we look at the matter calmly and with know¬ 
ledge, we necessarily arrive at the conclusion, that rain in autumn, 
if long continued, is the most disastrous to plants, whether they 
are in flower or no ; and that the effect upon such as are not in 
flower, is to injure, if not altogether destroy their flowering in 
the ensuing season. There is another, and perhaps more serious 
evil. Greenhouses and other contrivances which protect tender 
plants from injury at other seasons, afford no protection against 
the autumnal rains ; for on the contrary, plants in them suffer more 
than plants exposed to the open air. The reason is, though the 
greenhouse keeps out the cold of the other seasons of the year, 
it does not keep out the autumnal damp—the very enemy against 
which the cultivator has especially to guard. The protection of 
a stove is not a perfectly complete one here ; and a greenhouse, 
in the case of very damp air, is about the worst place the plants 
can be in, especially if they be of kinds which, during this 
season, are in a state of very dry repose. Even if this is not the 
case, they suffer both in their leaves and in their stems ; and if 
they, naturally, should be dry, the suffering is so severe as greatly 
to injure, and often to kill them. Shrubs which are naturally 
very dry during the season of rest, suffer the most from these 
rains. If they do not damp off, or are otherwise killed outright, 
they shed their leaves as if they were deciduous, or the stems 
become covered with small fungi, which destroy the action of the 
bark, and the plants linger in an unhealthy state, and often die at 
the last. 
The shedding of the leaves is not so serious as this ; but it 
generally causes the loss of a whole year’s vegetation, and some¬ 
times, though not very often, unless the stems are affected, kills 
the plants. In all cases, however, the reproductive energy is 
weakened, and the next bloom is never so fine as when the 
autumn passes away without any injury. This result has already 
taken place from the over-humidity of the past autumn ; and it is 
to be feared that only a small portion of this evil has hitherto 
. VOL. IIT. NO. II. g 
