POMOLOGY /lND METEOROLOGY. 



ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE MONROE MEETING OF THE STATE POMO- 

 LOGICAL SOCIETY BY GEORGE PARIIELEE, PRESIDENT OF THE 



SOCIETY. 



Gextlemex : — I have allowed this subject to be announced for me, not with 

 the intention of entering fully into a consideration of either branch of it 

 singly, but to show only enough of the facts relating to the connection of the 

 two to awaken, if I cau, an interest among the members sufficient to lead to a 

 constant and careful observation of tlie phenomena which we meet in our 

 experience. 



METEOROLOGICAL MYSTERIES. 



There is no branch of physical science which is less explored or in which 

 more things remain a mystery than in the varying conditions of the atmos- 

 phere, and the relation of those changing conditions to the general economy 

 of nature. 



Why one winter should be colder than another while the earth is making 

 similar revolutions around the supposed source of heat; why the storms of win- 

 ter begin a month earlier one year than they do some other year ; why we have 

 equally as great difference in the approach of different springs; why some sum- 

 mers are long and hot and others short and cool ; why some are so rainy that 

 little but grass can grow, and again they are so dry that vegetation hardly sur- 

 vives; why the orange trees were all killed by cold weather in Florida in 1835, 

 while in the Northwest the winter was characterized by no such severity ; why 

 we have just passed the coldest on record, while Florida ha? been enjoying h'^r 

 usual mildness; why Southern Italy has, in som;i winters, very unusual cold, 

 while Northern Europe has a c )mparatively mild winter; why some of our 

 winters are little else than a succession of cyclonic storms "dnd others are noted 

 for the even tenor of the winds; why some summers and autumns are the de- 

 light of steamboat men for their freedom from sadden and high winds, and 

 others are the exact reverse, and accidents and losses characteriz3 the season; 

 why the air of a cleir day is somo^imas ch irged or saturated with moisture, 

 and on another apparently similar day the air is taking up moisture from 

 everything which can part with it: these are a few of the questions in which 

 science aids but little; we will only venture one thought in relation to them. 



They are not the result of caprice in the forces of nature, but the outcome 

 of laws as orderly and wise as tnose which govern the motions of the planets, 



