1857.] Revised Edition of Downing' s Fruits, etc. 5 [ 5 



never threw its pleasant sliadc, or delighted with its luscious fruit, 

 almost exhausted with improvident cropping, and which would yield 

 apples, peaches, pears, etc., in rich abundance, while there are other 

 thousands of bottom lands ever baffling the vain attempts to grow 

 such fruits, and yet are often so appropriated. Kature herself it 

 would seem teaches her lesson plainly, but man will not heed her 

 instructions. The same of other trees ; a spruce tree will thrive well 

 for six or seven years on dry sandy soil ; but look at it when twenty 

 years old, and its under branches are withered, void of foliage, and 

 the whole plant at a complete stand still. The same species on a 

 northern slope, or at the foot of a hill where the soil is loamy and 

 damp, is quite another picture. Its very boughs clothed in richest 

 green ; its luxuriant branches resting on the ground, and so covered 

 that the stem is entirely concealed — and if left untouched, it will 

 remain so for sixty years. Thus of other trees ; it is necessary to 

 study their habits, soil best adapted, and obey the dictates of nature. 

 A proper apportioning of our soil is a subject which should receive 

 more attention by our fruit growers generally. It is as important 

 to study the adaptations of our soil as it is those of climate. In- 

 deed climaxology is connected with this very subject. You may see 

 upon this seventeenth day of October, 1857, Dahlias, Geraniums and 

 all the tender plants in bloom all over our hill-tops, while they have 

 been wilted some three weeks or more on our bottom lands. The 

 same is true in the spring ; the bloom is later upon the hill-tops, 

 while at the same time the frosts are later in our valleys — two coin- 

 cident circumstances favoring hills for fruit. 



Grenerally fruit-killing frosts are at least two weeks later in spring, 

 and as much earlier in the fall on low lands than upon our hill-tops. 

 And then again there is a great difference even upon our uplands 

 in relation to frost, depending upon exposure, nature of the soil, etc. J 

 hence, as we have said, the study of our soils embraces essentially 

 the study of climatology. 



The adptation of the lands about Cincinnati is unsurpassed for 

 ornamentation and the growing of luscious fruits. How different 

 the bleak, broad, cold prairies of the West which thousands of our 

 population seem crazy to occupy, where one vast monotonous ocean- 

 like view meets the constant gaze, and old J^olus keeps unchained 

 his once imprisoned winds. Here we may enjoy the most perfect 

 union of the useful and the beautiful that earth knows. Trees full 



