1892.] ESSAYS. 89 



ture at Sapporo, the capital of Yesso, in degrees Fahrenheit, 

 from the year 1877 to 1886, inckisive, were as follows : — 47.53, 

 44.79, 45.13, 45.51, 44.82, 45.19, 44.27, 42.69, 44.14 and 

 46.63. On two or three nights every winter the mercury 

 registers from four to twelve degrees below zero ; the really hot 

 weather of the summer is limited to one month, setting in about 

 the middle of July. The autumn frosts are late in coming, 

 seldom destroying even the most tender plants before the middle 

 of October. The yearly precipitation — a large part in the 

 form of snow — varied during the years of my residence between 

 about thirty-three and fifty-five inches. The springs and early 

 summers are dry ; the late summers and autumns are rainy. 

 The snow fall is large ; the smallest in any winter of the twelve 

 I spent there was nine feet ; the largest eighteen feet ; the 

 average being about twelve feet. An important point, doubtless 

 as eftecting both the indigenous and introduced plants is this : 

 the snow usually falls upon unfrozen ground, or at least the 

 amount of frost is so slight that by the middle of January the 

 ground, even in open fields, is free from it. Carrots, turnips, 

 and potatoes are often left in the ground over winter and come 

 out in spring uninjured. The soil in the forests can scarcely at 

 any time feel the effects of frost. 



Another important climatic peculiarity as affecting vegetation 

 is the comparatively warm and wet autumn, succeeded at last 

 rather suddenly by a heavy fall of snow and colder weather. 

 Such a change usually finds the leaves still green on introduced 

 apple, peach, and cherry trees, as well as on raspberry and black- 

 berry bushes. 



Those among you who are fruit culturists are familiar with 

 the fact that such a state of affairs indicates wood still compara- 

 tively soft and immature, and unfitted to withstand the rigors of 

 winter. You will not be surprised then to learn that certain 

 fruit trees, usually hardy here, are there in most cases winter- 

 killed. This fact, viewed in connection with certain peculiari- 

 ties of the native flora, at first thought appears exceedingly 

 puzzling. In the vicinity of Sapporo were large numbers of two 

 species of magnolia ; the one Magnolia Kobus, chiefly in the low, 

 moist lands ; the other Magnolia Hypoleuca, chiefly on the dry, 



