394 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Department of Agricultural Meteorology, whose duty it shall be to gather up 

 and disseminate facts bearing upon this subject, acting for that purpose, in 

 harmony and concert with the corresponding bureau at Washington. It would 

 also seem of the highest importance that, as a means of bringing the whole 

 subject to bear properly upon the future of our State, the scientific principles 

 of at least Agricultural Meteorology, with their proximate applications, should 

 be embodied in a 



TEXT BOOK, 



which should be introduced, and required to be taught in our primary shools 

 as well as in our higher institutions of learning. 



Sombre as is the cloud that for some years has seemed to threaten the here- 

 tofore brilliant prospects of fruit-culture in Michigan, it is not without its 

 "silver lining." Even at the worst, we have greatly the advantage of most of 

 our sister States; while even the injury already so unwittingly done, is not 

 utterly beyond recall, and in a very large proportion of the State the means of 

 prevention are yet in the hands of our people ; and even if we shall neglect or 

 refuse to avail ourselves of these, and shall come to suffer the full penalty 

 which an all Avisp Providence is certain to inflict upon those who ignore His 

 laws and disregard His warnings; fortunately for her devotees, there remains 

 to them, beside the sheltering aegis of our frost-repelling and moisture dis- 

 tilling lake, a Pomonial Paradise, which can by no possibility be shorn of its 

 glory, as the consequence of any backward stride in the grand march of 

 improvement, of which heretofore we have all been so justly proud. Here, 

 secure that neither the ax of the woodsman, nor the sweep of the "fire fiend,'* 

 can ever subject them to the calamities that so fatally interfere with the suc- 

 cess of their less favored co-laborers, they can indulge the pursuit of their 

 chosen vocation to their hearts' content. Yet they are not, even here, to be 

 permitted entirely to escape the ills peculiar to their vocation, — ills from 

 which, since the days of our first parents, no Eden seems to offer us a refuge. 

 Drought, frost, storm, and even tornado must, here as elsewhere, be anticipated 

 and provided against. 



THE RAIN BEAKING WINDS, 



crossing the lake, as has been heretofore described, are of course deflected 

 upwards on coming in contact with the shore ; and the degree of such deflec- 

 tion, and the consequent probability of its becoming the cause of a fall of rain, 

 must depend greatly upon the height or boldness of the shore. If, now, there 

 be added to the height of the shore proper that of a dense growth of timber, 

 just so much is doubtless added to the probability of accompanying rain. The 

 correctness of this theory would seem to be confirmed by the circumstance 

 that, where the shore is but of moderate height, the land rising gradually as 

 we go inland, we find the rainfall, or at least the snowfall, leasi near the lake, 

 while the fact that the rainfall along the high, bold shores of Grand Traverse 

 Bay is greater than at points farther south where the shores are less bold, 

 would seem also to be confirmatory of the same theory. These ideas are 

 advanced here for the purpose of inviting the attention of residents along the 

 lake shore to the question of the probable advantage, in this respect, of the 

 preservation of a growth of timber adjacent to the lake, as well as to the bene- 

 fits of timber belts at points more remote. 

 It should not be forgotten that the real advantage of lake protection con- 



