172 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



quils. Also the orange-trees, which are everywhere 

 in the houses and in the open in gardens, seemed to be 

 standing the severe weather pretty well ; they were 

 full of fruit and burgeons. But often they are frozen, 

 and this is not seldom the case even to the south, at 

 Pensacola in Florida. There it has been found at last 

 by experience that the best means of guarding these 

 trees against the injurious effect of great winter-cold 

 or northwest weather, is to take away the earth from 

 their roots at the approach of winter, exposing the 

 whole tree so that all its parts may be subject to the 

 same temperature. Not one tree died that was han- 

 dled thus ; but those from which the earth had not 

 been removed from the roots cracked and died. A 

 palm-tree, 7-8 feet high, standing out in a garden, 

 suffered from this weather and its leaves hung slack. 

 Several other trees from warmer regions, such as 

 Croton sebiferiim, Sap Indus Saponaria &c, which 

 hitherto had withstood the cold well in the open, it was 

 feared would this time hardly escape damage. These 

 and other tender plants which Carolina has in common 

 with the West Indies, either naturally or from trans- 

 plantation, thrive only on the sea-coast where in com- 

 parison with the inland country milder and more tem- 

 perate weather prevails generally. Some 60-80 miles 

 inland from Charleston snow was seen to fall during 

 this time more than once. The variable winter- 

 weather often gives rise to inflammatory diseases 

 which at other times are less frequent in this region, 

 and require bleedings neither powerful nor often 

 repeated. Carolina is in the spring a paradise, in 

 the summer a hell, and in the autumn a hospital. 

 The more oppressive months are June, July, and 



