MARCH. 07 
that notion. For, surely, there are but few who can remember many 
winters in which there have been severer frosts or more snow, and a 
longer continuance of them, than there has been this season. The effect 
has been injurious and fatal to many things in the Pinetum, pleasure 
grounds, and garden; many a fine specimen previously considered hardy 
has been much injured, if not quite killed. It is not often that things 
are in a condition so little able to withstand frost as they were last 
autumn. ‘The mild, warm, growing weather which prevailed during 
the whole of last September, and up to the 20th of October, induced 
late growth, particularly among flowers and vegetables ; consequently, 
a week’s keen frost made sad havoc among them; ‘ bedding plants” 
were completely finished, but as there had been ample time for pro- 
viding a good supply of young “stuff” for another season, and as we 
could not expect them naturally to last much longer, their destruction 
then was a matter of no- serious consequence. Scarcely, however, had 
we got matters made neat and tidy, than we were visited early in 
December with a degree of cold so severe and destructive as to cause the 
loss of many valuable plants; and as we have had severe frost and: 
snow ever since, with only a few days’ intermission, it is to be feared 
there will be many a blank to be made good next spring in the Pinetum 
and pleasure grounds. Here, with the exception of a few days, snow 
has been on the ground for these last ten weeks,. 
As the Conifers at this place have stood all without sustaining much 
injury, it may interest some of your readers to know which they are. 
I may remark that the ground is very undulating, and the subsoil of a 
dry and gravelly nature. None of the very delicate or more tender 
Conifers were planted. As Pinus insignis, which is one of the most 
beautiful of all the Pinuses, has been completely killed in many places, 
I may state my own experience, and my own opinion as to its hardi- 
hood. By many it is considered to be too tender and delicate for this 
climate; indeed, I have been repeatedly told that it will not thrive in 
Yorkshire. My own experience in the matter leads me to believe it 
will succeed admirably, provided the conditions necessary for success be 
supplied, namely, a situation where it will have full exposure to air. 
without being too much exposed to the sweep of the north-west winds, 
anda dry subsoil; these conditions are absolutely necessary to ensure 
its success. To plant them in low, flat, sheltered, humid situations, and in 
strong heavy retentive, or badly drained land, is to end in certain failure. 
There are several very fine thriving young trees of Pinus insignis here. 
The two largest have been planted nine years; they were then very 
small, poor things ; the largest is now 15 feet high and 10 feet through, 
and is as perfect and promising a specimen as any person could wish to 
see. These trees are as exposed as any trees possibly can be to the 
‘north-west and north-east winds, and not a single bud of either has been 
injured since they were planted, nor has the foliage ever been in the 
slightest degree browned until this season, when one side of the largest 
tree has suffered a little, but as I have just remarked, not a bud is 
injured. There are several smaller trees, all (except one) in very 
exposed situations, which have stood the weather without injury. 
There is one tree in a situation that is much sheltered by Laurels, and 
