DECEMBER. 357 



day but few tracts of land that have not undergone the operation of 

 drainage within these last few years, consequently rendering it fit for 

 the absorption of the summer's heat, and holding it in store till the 

 temperature of the atmosphere is lower than that of the earth, when 

 this accumulated heat is radiated ; therefore, this increased surface of 

 radiation must tend to increase rather than diminish our temperature ; 

 and as there is no philosophical evidence of our being further removed 

 from the equator and placed in a colder latitude, this idea of decreased 

 temperature must be banished. It was also again asked if this dete- 

 rioration spoken of proceeded from more sudden or violent changes ; if 

 so, from whence do they proceed ? for we have still the same expansive 

 Atlantic on one side, and the same narrow channel on the other, as when 

 Sir W. Temple, in 1683, wrote so enthusiastically in reference to the 

 beautiful Peaches his garden then produced, which he stated had been 

 tasted by a gentleman from Gascony, who had pronounced them quite 

 equal to any that climate could furnish. Again, in our own day, that 

 indefatigable horticulturist, the late Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. — 

 who is no mean authority in these matters — was strongly impressed 

 with the idea that with judicious cGltivation the Peach might be 

 sufficiently hardened as to be naturalised to the climate of England, so 

 as to succeed in ripening its fruit, even as a standard, in the open air. 

 (Some expressions of regret were here made that our horticulturists had 

 not followed up these ideas by applying the same energies to hybridising, 

 with a view of accomplishing this end, as they had devoted to the 

 opposite cause.) The next point in defendant's charge referred to was 

 where he asked the question — "What had the ripening of the wood 

 and draining the borders to do with spring protection ? " This was a 

 point it was considered required some elucidation, for both those things 

 tended ulteriorly to this very point to which defendant refers, namely, 

 the moisture contained in the flower, in the first place by divesting a 

 tree of the means of obtaining a superabundant supply of moisture 

 on the one hand, and by thinning the shoots and nailing them so as to 

 expose them to the full influence of the light on the other, there will 

 be a greater amount of organic matter stored up, and, in consequence, 

 the blossom will have more strength and less moisture, to enable it to 

 withstand any inclemency it may be subjected to. Again, defendant 

 was certainly quite right in the view he had taken in regard to 

 radiation taking place most in a clear atmosphere, but he had cer- 

 tainly, to a certain degree, criminated himself in making use of these 

 words ; for, if radiation takes place most in a clear atmosphere, then 

 defendant, by shading too much the objects he overhangs, must be the 

 means of checking this radiation ; we, however, here find the principal 

 advantage of broad copings, which do not check radiation, but allow the 

 walls to give out their accumulated heat, which when given out always 

 ascends perpendicularly, it therefore thus rises until it strikes against 

 the coping, which causes it again to return, thus keeping the walls at a 

 considerably higher temperature than the surrounding atmosphere. To 

 prove this it was advised that two registering thermometers be placed 

 — one to hang within six inches of the wall beneath the coping, and 

 the other at about three or four feet from the wall ; both to be at equal 

 heights from the ground. 



