APRIL. ‘ 111 
in a new plantation on a very exposed situation they are killed to the 
ground—in sheltered places, young plants have last season’s growth 
killed, and plants of 20 to 30 feet high have not been hurt at all: 
Magnolia conspicua and acuminata had the points of the shoots killed, 
and grandiflora, tops of many shoots dead, and foliage very much 
browned. ' 
I am afraid that many Roses are past recovery; Bourbon Queen, 
Souvenir de Malmaison, and General Jacqueminot, have suffered most, 
and the common China has many of its shoots dead. The flowers and 
many of the shoots of the Laurestinus are gone, while the Sweet Bay is 
quite cut up. The late growth of Holly, especially on clipped hedges, 
which, from the growing weather in September, had made another 
growth, was killed by the October frost. We are now, the 10th of 
March, with 8° of frost ; yesterday we had 12°, and the ground covered 
with snow. Not a blade of Grass, the Snowdrops are but just in 
flower, and a few early Crocuses beginning to peep. Altogether it is 
the most severe and long winter I ever recollect, so that we must hope 
for a favourable spring. 
DELTA. 
GRAPES IN THE OPEN AIR. 
«Grapes, Ah! they are luxuries that are only to be obtained by the 
rich in this country, or at best by those who can afford to erect glass 
structures; but for us, who can only afford to build walls, we must 
say of the Grape, as the Fox did, ‘They are sour things to us.’ 
I have asked many practical men why the Grape will not do out-of- 
doors with us ; and their invariable answer has been, that cur climate 
is not warm enough, or that our summers are too short. I! cannot 
afford to erect glass structures, therefore the luxury of the luscious 
Grape I must forego.” The above being a very generally endorsed 
opinion, a few remarks upon this subject will not, I trust, be out of 
lace. 
E Grapes out-of-doors! Why not? Surely, what can be effectually 
done in the West Riding of Yorkshire may be equally well achieved in 
the more southern counties; but first of all, let us consider the time 
required to bring the Grape to perfection out-doors. In the Grape 
growing districts of France, the Vines begin to grow about the middle 
of March, and the fruit is ripe about the end of September or beginning 
of October; and as the mean temperature of March and April in 
France is somewhere about 8° above what it is in this country, and 
September and October will be about 10° above us, we therefore 
plainly see that our summers are not long enough for the cultivation of 
the Grape naturally—hot enough they undoubtedly are as long as they 
last; we must therefore employ artificial means to obtain these results. 
In the gardens of George Lane Fox, Esq., Bramham Park, Tadcaster, 
are annually grown, ripened, and magnificently coloured, upon lued 
walls, as fine Black Hamburghs as any one could wish to see (see 
page 26 in vol. for 1857). ‘There is also another place in that neigh- 
