PROTECTING PLANTS IN WINTER.
Very many shrubs, vines, roses, etc., usually regarded as tender, may yet be safely left standing in the garden if properly protected.
The neck of plants, i. e. that part at which the roots and stem come together, requires thorough protection; both because it is the most tender (as some say), and because it is at this point, that freezing and sudden thawing must occur. The black soil absorbing heat rapidly, the neck of a plant will be first and most affected by the morning sun; and this is the reason, we think, rather than any special tenderness of parts, why plants are killed at the crown of the root. Let the ground be well covered with leaves or with coarse manure, and let it come up three or four inches high on the stem. It is better to have the top strawy, rather than dark colored manure.
It is the sun, and not the frost, that, for the most part, kills the stems of half-hardy plants. Protection is often, therefore, only thorough shading. The Bengal tea, and noisette roses are left out at Philadelphia and at Cincinnati without detriment.
Drive a stake by the side of the plant, and drawing up the branches to it, cover them with straw, or bass-matting wrapped around them. Kegs, barrels, boxes, etc., may be turned over such as are not too high and will sufficiently protect them. Air-holes should be bored in barrels, etc., and the north side is the best for the purpose.
Grape vines which need protection should be loosened from the trellis or wall, pruned, laid down on the ground and earth thrown over them three or four inches deep. Isabella and Catawba grape vines will need no protection.
TO PRESERVE DAHLIA ROOTS.
The least frost destroys these roots. In warm and damp cellars they rot. Very many persons have no cellars at all (a very frequent destitution at the West); others are so small and moist, as to be unfit (our own, for instance); and the extreme variations of temperature during the day and night make sitting-rooms and their closets very unsafe places for them. The labor of packing them in sand is not great to those who have it ready or men to procure it; but to ladies, and especially to many in towns and cities who are enthusiastic cultivators of flowers, but grievously vexed with poverty of pocket, this plan is inconvenient.
Why may not dahlias be kept in the soil? We think there is not the least doubt that they can be protected from frost and heat. Every one knows that in spading up in the spring the dahlia beds of the previous year, large sections of the tubers, which had broken off when the main