INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 399 



localities it will consume as many as one hundred and sixty in 

 coming' to maturity. Cotton vibrates from a perennial tree in its 

 tropical home, to an annual-herbaceous plant along the extreme 

 northern line of its growth. The world renowned sea-island staple 

 can only be produced when a given amount of heat and moisture 

 can be uniformly'' provided. We have the highest authority in- 

 forming us that in no two districts of England do the same varieties 

 of ornamental flowers attain' an equal degree of excellence, although 

 each may be receiving the attention of the most skillful cultivators. 

 Wines from particular localities in the south of Europe, possess a 

 flavor attainable no where else, and no distiller is expert enough to 

 coax from wheat, barley and corn, a liquid possessing the com- 

 bined life and richness of that which these grains yield when 

 grown in the Blue-grass soil of Kentucky. 



If curiosity prompts, you may follow the workings of this in- 

 fluence of climate even to the fibre and chemical qualities of the 

 plant. The wood of the locust so valuable with us, is nearly 

 worthless grown in England. Our New England forest king, the 

 white oak, when grown at the Cape of Good Hope, loses all its 

 tenacity and strength. The heat, humid atmosphere, and soil of 

 Florida will convert the apple tree into a growth hardly recogniz- 

 able to eyes only familiar to it in its northern home, the pliancy of 

 its branches, and the form of its leaves maki'ig a close approxima- 

 tion to those of our common water willow. 



On the plains of India, hemp yields a plentiful harvest of seed, 

 but the fibre is brittle and worthless, while in England it gives a 

 valuable fibre, but none of that resinous substance so extensively 

 used in India as an intoxicating drus:. 



A synoptical view of the globe would reveal facts to our eyes 

 bearing upon the same point, on a far grander scale than those 

 found in such details. We should find, within certain isothermal 

 lines, zones of vegetable productions, belting the entire globe, 

 gradually shading off on either border of the zone into such varie- 

 ties as flourish best in a higher or a lower temperature, and that as 

 a whole, vegetation shades off by ^ gradual incline, from the Equa- 

 tor to the poles. From the leaf}'- coronal, which nods above the 

 stately trunk of the monarch of the tropics, we come down through 

 groves where the orange and myrtle flourish ; then to the oak and 

 chestnut, onward to pines and firs, birches, alders, stunted spruces, 

 and thence onward to the humble reindeer-moss, growing under- 

 neath the northern snow. Each variety of plant life we here meet 



