Miscellaneous, 75 



pointing out briefly the comparative epochs of vegetation* in dif- 

 ferent countries. 



In a treatise which I read before the Academy several years ago, 

 and which perhaps has not been without its use to botanical geo- 

 graphy, I said that, after leaving the peach-trees at Brest without 

 flowers and without leaves on the 1st of April, I had found them in 

 full flower at Lisbon eight days later, and that this was also the 

 case with the Cercis, with several species of Lathyrus, of Vicia, of 

 Ophrys, and of Juncus, &c. ; that on the 25th, at Madeira, I had 

 found the fruit of the peach already set, and the wheat in ear ; that 

 on the 29th, at TenerifFe, they were getting in the harvest, and the 

 peaches were perfectly ripe. 



In the journey which I have just completed, I took vegetation, 

 so to speak, in a contrary direction. As a term of comparison 

 I shall make choice of the oat, because it is this cereal which is cul- 

 tivated furthest to the north. The 10th of August they finished 

 getting in the crop about Orleans. The 23rd they were finishing 

 between Beauvais and St. Omer; the 31st between Hamburgh and 

 Lubeck ; on the 2nd of September cherries were still selling in the 

 market of Copenhagen; the 6th September the oat-harvest was 

 finishing round about Christiania, and, from the 10th to the 1 8th 

 September, I saw it continually going on between this town and 

 Trondhjem. It would naturally be supposed that in returning to 

 Christiania I should find it quite over, but having taken another 

 route, I saw it constantly going on between Trondhjem and Chris- 

 tiania, just as I had seen it between Christiania and Trondhjem. 

 Those who know how powerful the influence of secondary causes is 

 in mountainous countries, will not be surprised at this seeming sin- 

 gularity. Thus in the Hedemarken, a very humid plain, where the 

 seed is sown very late, it is not surprising that the harvest should be 

 late ; nor is it more so that the corn is cut earlier on that side of the 

 great lake Mjosen which is exposed to the south, than on that 

 which is exposed to the north. 



I have also been struck by some other considerations. We know 

 that in northern countries the shortness of the summers is compen- 

 sated by the length of the days, and that vegetation, which is not 

 suspended by long nights, goes through its phases in a space of time 

 much less considerable than with us. At Christiania, on the 10th of 

 September, I had left it nearly in the same state in which it is in 

 France during the last week of the same month. At Roeraas, one 

 of the highest points of the Scandinavian chain, where the mercury 

 freezes every year, and where the Betula nana grows in abundance, 

 it presented the same appearance on the 14th of September that it 

 it has in the middle of France at the beginning of November. On 



* A series of regular observations on the relations of the phaenomena of 

 the animal and vegetable kingdoms to atmospheric influences and the pe- 

 riodicity of the seasons, has been commenced by the Belgian naturalists 

 (see * Bulletin de I'Acad. de Bruxelles,' 1841, p. 154), at the suggestion of 

 M. Quetelet, who invited the aid of British observers, at the last meeting of 

 the Britisli Association at Plymouth. — Ed. 



