2 Retrospective View of the 



part of June was cool, with refreshing showers, and some 

 damage was done to the blossoms of peach and other fruit 

 trees in exposed situations. On the 25th, it set in exceeding- 

 ly warm, with the thermometer at 95°, 96°, 92°, and 92° for 

 the four successive days ; and the following fortnight was the 

 only dry weather of the summer. July was fine and warm, 

 and vegetation, which had been backward, made a most 

 rapid growth ; frequent showers the last part of the month 

 were highly refreshing. August commenced with cold east- 

 erly winds, and a great quantity of rain fell on the 5th, Gth, 

 and 7th of the month : it continued cool throughout. Sep- 

 tember was also a cool and rather unpleasant month, with 

 considerable rain. October was mild and beautiful, and no 

 frost to injure even the dahlias, was experienced until as late 

 as the 21st, at which period they were in full bloom ; on the 

 27th, the cold was very severe, and the thermometer fell as 

 low as 18° in the vicinity of Boston, — an unusual occur- 

 rence of cold for the season. Succeeding this, November 

 opened mild, and continued remarkably fine up to the last 

 two days, when the temperature again fell exceedingly low, 

 being only at zero, a greater degree of cold than was experi- 

 enced any one day during the winter of 1845. This unsea- 

 sonable weather did not, however, long continue, for Decem- 

 ber, up to the time we now write, (15th,) has been one of the 

 mildest since 1832 ; on the 13th, the thermometer stood at 60° 

 at sunrise. 



A finer season for vegetation of all kinds, particularly 

 shrubs and trees, has not lately been experienced. Pears 

 have not been so fine and large as in 1846, though the crop 

 was much more abundant. The crop of apples was scarcely 

 an average one. The season was never more favorable to the 

 strawberry, and, as our readers may have noticed, in our 

 reports of exhibitions, finer specimens were never yet seen 

 of this delicious fruit. Grapes, owing to the lateness of the 

 spring and the cool weather in early autumn, did not ripen 

 near as well as in the average of years : in some situations, 

 they scarcely attained any sweetness. Peaches were remark- 

 ably plentiful in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, 

 but, in New England, they were not quite so abundant as the 

 year previous, nor attained the same degree of excellence, 

 owing to the cool weather of September. 



