PEACHES PEAKS CHERRIES GRAPES. 157 



ghenies and the Atlantic slope, are year by year 

 swept away, the severity of our " cold snaps," and 

 the celerity with which they appear and disappear, 

 are constantly aggravated. A change of 60, or 

 from 50 above to 10 below zero, between morning 

 and the following midnight, soon followed by an 

 equally rapid return to an average November tem- 

 perature, often proves fatal even to hardy forest-trees. 

 I have had the Ked Cedar in my woods killed by 

 scores during an open, capricious Winter ; and my 

 observation indicates the warmest spots in a forest as 

 those where trees are most likely to be thus destroyed. 

 After an Arctic night, in which they are frozen solid, 

 a bright sun sends its rays into the warmest nooks, 

 whence the wind is excluded, and .wholly or partially 

 thaws out the smaller trees; which are suddenly frozen 

 solid again so soon as the sunshine is withdrawn ; and 

 thig partly explains to my mind the fact that peach- 

 buds are often killed in lower and level portions of 

 an orchard, while they retain their vitality on the 

 hill-side and at its crest, not 80 rods distant from 

 those destroyed. The fact that the colder air de- 

 scends into and remains in the valleys of a rolling 

 district contributes also to the correct explanation 

 of a phenomenon which has puzzled some obser- 

 vers. 



Unless in a favored locality, it seems to me unad- 

 visable'for a farmer who expects to thrive mainly by 

 the production of Grain and Cattle, to attempt the 

 growing of the finer Fruits, except for the use of his 



