564 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



A house on a bleak exposure would suffer the inconve- 

 nience of it during eight or nine months of the year ; while 

 another, in a sheltered vale, though exposed to more heat in 

 July, would suffer vastly less from the inclemency of the 

 weather in winter and spring. But it is not necessary to 

 plant one's house in a valley to secure these advantages. An 

 elevated site may be as warm as a low one, if its slopes 

 are in such a position as to receive the direct rays of 

 the sun during the best part of the day, and if it be provided 

 with a boundary of wood that will save the solar heat from 

 being scattered by the winds. I would never allow this bul- 

 wark, if it could be prevented, to extend round so far east or 

 west as to intercept my view of sunrise or sunset, considernig 

 a view of the heavens, at these hours of the day, as more 

 valuable than any other kind of prospect ; and, during the 

 short days of autumn and winter, I should set a high 

 value upon any circumstance that would hasten the arrival of 

 morn, and prolong the light of declining day. 



The best kind of protection is a hill or a ridge forming a 

 bend, with its concave side facing the south, having its lower 

 part open, and its summit crowned with a wood. The wood 

 in this case cuts off the force of the winds, while the lower 

 surface of the slope acts as a reverberator of the sun's heat. 

 The same hill, without the trees, would be an excellent re- 

 verberator ; but it needs the wood on its summit, to retain 

 the heat which is thus accumulated. As the width of sur- 

 face protected by any such barrier is proportional to its 

 . height, other things being equal, a wood on the summit of a 

 ridge or a bank must protect a much wider surface than could 

 be protected by the hill without the wood, or the wood with- 

 out the hill, or by the hill with the wood only on its lower 

 part. 



Had I the wealth to enable me to do as I pleased with my 

 grounds, I would be particular to grade them in such a man- 

 ner as to make all the slopes lean as much as possible to the 

 south — those, especially, that bounded my enclosures. Were 

 the regard paid to these circumstances universal, it is evident 

 that the general temperature of the climate must be proper- 



