80 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
From the monthly Résumé of the San Miguel Meteoro- 
logical Observatory, under the direction of Captain F. A. 
Chaves, the 47th Bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment 
Station of Utah, and data obligingly furnished by Dr. H. 
C. Frankenfield of the St. Louis Weather Bureau, the 
accompanying tables for 1896 have been compiled, to show 
some of the more obvious differences between an insular 
and two classes of continental climate, at approximately 
the same distance from the equator. 
The mild moist climate, favorable for the growth of a 
great variety of plants of subtropical origin, and the easily 
disintegrated volcanic debris, for the most part abundantly 
watered by brooks and seepage from the moors above, are 
offset by the prevalence of strong gales at certain seasons, 
and the liability to cyclones in late summer and early 
autumn. These winds, fresh from the ocean, often do 
much damage, yet the Azores, on the whole, offer great 
possibilities for the cultivation of plants which in the United 
States can be grown only in California and the most favored 
parts of the Gulf States. 
The standard agricultural crops are wheat, Indian corn, 
sweet potatoes, potatoes, and the common vegetables of 
our own gardens. Lupins are largely grown as a soiling 
crop, a practice, like many others, traceable back to the 
Romans. In season, the markets offer strawberries, 
apricots, melons, and other fruits of temperate climates, 
in abundance and of good quality, though pears and apples 
do not impress one usually as being equal to those grown 
in England or the United States. Grapes of the vinifera 
type, which were at one time largely grown, have been 
almost exterminated by the Oidium and Phylloxera, and few 
if any efforts have been made to replant the vineyards with 
the best varieties grafted on American roots, as has been 
done in France. On the contrary, the superior vinifera 
grapes have been replaced largely by inferior derivatives of 
the labrusca stock. As a result, the Azorean wines, 
which at one time were considered almost, if not quite, 
