16 NEW AMERICAN ORCHARDIST. 



included in the best part, or southern half section of the 

 temperate zone, with a climate one of the most favored, 

 and a soil the most desirable, on earth. It extends from 

 the Gulf of Mexico, and the confines of the equatorial 

 regions, and the Lat. of 24, to the Lat. of 48 and the 

 British possessions on the side of the Atlantic. South- 

 west is Mexico; and on the west, and looking towards 

 Asia, it is bounded by the shores of the Pacific Ocean ; 

 and on the north by the Lat. of 54 and the possessions 

 of Russia. 



The climate of the Atlantic States has been generally 

 characterized as variable and inconstant. These sudden 

 changes are caused, in a great measure, by the conflicting 

 winds, which blow alternately from the opposite points 

 the sources of extreme heat and of excessive cold. Those, 

 especially, from the south-east and south, bring, alternately, 

 clouds charged with sultry vapors, or storms of rain, or 

 the fiery particles and intense heat which they have inhaled 

 in the equinoctial regions. While the winds from the 

 north-west, coming, as they do, over a vast extent of territory, 

 and from the regions of eternal ice and snow, they bring 

 down with them, at certain seasons, a degree of cold the 

 most piercing and intense. These adverse winds bring by 

 turns, and often by sudden changes, the heat of the tropi- 

 cal, or the extreme cold atmosphere of the polar, regions. 

 The climate of our country, in regard to its capacity and 

 vegetable productions, is not to be estimated by the meas- 

 ure of its distance from the equator, nor by the average 

 temperature of the winter, or even that of the year ; but 

 rather by the mean heat of the summer, and its duration, 

 For while the average temperature, or heat of the year, is 

 greater at Rome and at Marseilles than at Cambridge, 

 Mass., the average heat of the summer months may be nearly 

 equal, since the mean of the greatest heat at Cambridge 

 exceeds that of Rome by 11, and that of Marseilles by 

 8, the mean of our greatest summer heat being 97 ; 

 though 100 and over, in some summers, is not with us 

 uncommon. 



From the average of the observations which have been 

 made in 20 cities on the continent of Europe, the climate 

 of America has been compared. And the proportion of 

 rain which annually falls is two fifths greater with us than 

 with them, or as 50 inches to 30. Yet our rainy days are 

 annually from a fourth to a third less in number, than with 



