(329) 



warmest temperatures at these important points during the past 

 week. 



Selection of Stations 



The selection of stations was made with a view to covering as 

 wide a range of conditions as practical considerations would 

 permit. Thanks to the generous cooperation of the Yale Forest 

 School, the Department of Forestry at Cornell University, and 

 the State College of Forestry at Syracuse, it was possible to 

 secure a distribution of stations which represented fairly well the 

 northern and southern as well as middle portions of the range of 

 the hemlock type. In this particular project we are interested 

 rather in the distribution of hemlock forests than in the range of 

 the tree as a botanical specimen, which, of course, is wider than 

 the range of the forest. 



The hemlock grove on the grounds of The New York Botanical 

 Garden represents the most southerly extension of this type of 

 forest along the Atlantic Coast. Accordingly this was taken as 

 the southerly point in the series. It should be pointed out, 

 however, that in all probability the reasons why this grove is the 

 most southerly representative of the type along the coast are not 

 wholly climatic. There seem to be also physiographic causes. 

 South of New York the coastal plain forms a wide belt extending 

 back from the Atlantic ocean. New York is the most southerly 

 point at which the older crystalline rocks come close to the sea. 

 Hemlock is primarily a tree of rocky places and rugged slopes, 

 rather than of deep soils and level stretches such as characterize 

 the coastal plain. 



The middle points, or optimum, in the hemlock type were 

 taken at Ithaca and near New Haven. Although New Haven is 

 at about the same latitude as New York, it is distinctly cooler, 

 and is in the midst of thriving hemlock forests which seem to do 

 almost as well as anywhere outside of the well-known stands in 

 Pennsylvania which it was impracticable to include. The 

 northerly point selected was at Cranberry Lake in the Adiron- 

 dacks, where the tree no longer forms pure stands, but occurs in 

 groups in the predominant northern hardwoods and spruce forest. 



Description of Stations 



At The New York Botanical Garden the above-mentioned 

 records were taken not only in the midst of the hemlock grove but 



