WHERE TO PLANT. 61 



wind comes rushing across the placid bosom of the lake, it 

 has force sufficient to carry this warm vapor on with it, and 

 by the time the south shore is reached the captive air has 

 raised the temperature of its captor by several degrees, so 

 that its frosty quality is lost. But if the cold wave comes 

 quietly and by stealth, as it were, and creeps slowly over 

 the water it chills the warm vapor, and so reaches the 

 south as cold as when it left the north shore. 



Besides this it has been clearly proved that frost, like 

 wind storms, travels in streaks, often with clearly defined 

 margins, so that a grove that may escape one frost may be 

 touched by another less severe, apparently " without rhyme 

 or reason." 



And so, after all, the best protection a grove can have is 

 from a belt of timber land, either inclosing it entirely, or 

 else guarding it on the north or west, since these are the 

 quarters whence come the highest and coldest winds. This 

 is a shield that can happily be obtained in almost any lo- 

 cality in Florida, for nearly every settler takes his land at 

 first or second hand, and forest land still predominates 

 throughout the State ; nowhere do we find immense con- 

 tiguous tracts of land all cleared and under tillage as in 

 the older settled States. 



