WILD ORANGE GROVE 1JUDDED. 25 



them probably for a century. As the cold winds 

 from the north-west have swept down upon them, 

 the frost has been tempered by passing over a body 

 of water of higher temperature than the winds. 

 The spreading branches of forest trees, hanging like 

 canopies, have checked the radiation of heat pass- 

 ing from the surface of the earth, and inclosed the 

 orange grove in a vapor bath. And even if the 

 tempest has been too strong and cold, and swept 

 away the warm air-blanket thrown by nature over 

 the tender orange shoot, and the cold has frozen 

 the sap until the tender woody tissues have been 

 ruptured, still the forest trees have stood like foster- 

 mothers to keep off the rays of the morning sun till 

 these ruptured tissues and sap vessels could be heal- 

 ed by the efforts of nature. The mother who has 

 suddenly plunged the body of her scalded child 

 into a bath of flour or oil to save the child from 

 suffering and death, has not shown a tenderer care 

 than the forest trees have extended for scores of 

 years over their charges. And yet the first thing 

 done by many of us who wished to improve our wild 

 groves was to cut down these natural protectors to a 

 tree. The wonder is, not that so many of these 

 wild groves have been destroyed, but that any have 

 been saved after such abuse. 



But we will not now discuss the advantages of par- 

 tial forest protection. The subject is of too much 

 importance to be dismissed in a single paragraph. 

 We will consider this subject in a separate chapter 



