THE SUMMER MEETING. 19 



arises, what and where are these favorable spots? I reply they are more plenty 

 than we sticklers for the peach belt are apt to admit. 



I say this with no disrespect for our enviable position on this lake shore, but 

 I still hold to the position I took fifteen years ago, that there are few farms in 

 ";he southern and central portion of this State, north and south, where these 

 favorable positions may not be selected, and peaches planted with a fair pros- 

 pect of success. 



The study of pneumatics is one of the most interesting in the world. People 

 go hundreds and thousands of miles to see the falls of Niagara and the Valley 

 of the Yosemite, seemingly ignoring the fact that they have a greater natural 

 curiosity in the atmosphere that surrounds them. All seem to understand that 

 its weight is fifteen pounds to the square inch, and that its height is estimated 

 in miles, but many do not seem to comprehend that the weight of a given 

 volume at the surface of the earth depends entirely on its temperature ; that 

 its mobility exceeds that of any other fluid, and that its elasticity is ten times 

 greater than India rubber. How beautiful would this atmosphere be, could we 

 only see it as we see trees and flowers ; its waves and ripples of sound booming 

 near by and dying away in the distance, crossing and intermingling as it comes 

 from different sources. No frostwork on the windows can equal its beauty, nor 

 snowflake excel its delicacy. Wonderful and beautiful, not visible to the eye, 

 comprehensible only to science, the fanciful dream of the poet, or the aerial 

 flight of the imagination. 



Well, what has all this to do with pomology? Why, it helps to teach us how 

 to avoid killing frosts, by choosing the ground on which to plant our tender 

 fruits ; for these frosts are more to be dreaded by the cultivator of peaches, 

 grapes, and kindred fruits, than all the insects to which they are heir. 



Here is a man who has several acres in peaches ; his ground slopes lightly to 

 the north, towards Black Lake (lately given the more poetic name, Mona 

 Lake). He tells me that though many buds are killed, there is a great plenty 

 of sound ones. Here is another man who has acres on nearly a dead level, 

 surrounded by high grubs and forests. I felt for him when he was planting 

 peaches there, but it was none of my business. They grew well the past two 

 years, and bore a nice crop last year, but they were only playing April Fool 

 with him ; this season the buds, branches, and trunks are dead down to the 

 snow line. To-day (May 12) I have visited, half a mile from Lake Michigan, 

 a nice thrifty young peach orchard that evidently bore last year; it was on a 

 flat, bounded north and west by a bold bluff, certainly very highly protected. 

 On a slight elevation were a few live buds, but none on the flat. 



It is not strictly altitude nor contiguous water that saves from frost. The 

 Secretary will remember my showing him a nice warm valley, less than a quar- 

 ter of a mile from, and from fifty to one hundred feet above both Lake Mich- 

 igan and Muskegon Lake, with a consumptive fruit tree in its highest corner. 

 This snug little valley, so nicely protected on all sides by hills and forest trees, 

 was very carefully cultivated, and planted to peaches about the year 1870, but 

 the sweeping destruction of the winter of 1874-5 found nothing there to vent 

 its spleen upon ; they were all dead before. Had I been consulted when he 

 planted them, I might at the end have said, "I told you so." I might men- 

 tion many other similar lessons, where as the air cooled after sundown there 

 was no chance for this cold heavy air to flow off to lower ground. "Why," 

 says my neighbor, "your six young peach trees in your garden are full of blos- 

 soms. I thought you claimed that they must have high ground exposed to the 



