ON ASPECT. 41 



tender, or less calculated to withstand the effects of 

 the wind, than the extremities of the young shoots of 

 a vine, which, from being extremely porous, are al- 

 most as susceptible of its withering influence as the 

 Sensitive Plant is of the touch of the hand. 



Many instances might be circumstantially detailed 

 of the injurious effects of the wind upon established 

 vines during the ir summer's growth ; two, however, 

 of recent occurrence, will perhaps suffice. 



On the eleventh of June, 1833, a strong wind sprang 

 up early in the morning from the west, and increased 

 in force till noon, when it blew quite a gale, and con- 

 tinued so to do throughout the day. It slackened a 

 little during the night, and gradually decreased in vio- 

 lence the next day, dying entirely away by the evening. 

 The effects of this wind on a vine of the White Mus- 

 cadine sort, trained on a wall having a western aspect, 

 were carefully observed. It had on a full crop of fruit, 

 and a good supply of fine young bearing-shoots, and 

 was altogether in a most thriving condition. Such, 

 however, were the injurious effects of the wind, in dis- 

 sipating all the accumulated secretions of the foliage, 

 and then closing, almost hermetically, its pores, and 

 thereby totally deranging the vital functions of the plant, 

 that, although in the heighth of the growing season, 

 not the slightest appearance of renewed vegetation 

 could be discerned in any part of its leaves, shoots, or 

 fruit, until the third day of July, or twenty two days 

 afterwards. It never produced another inch of good 

 bearing wood throughout the remainder of the season, 

 but lingered in a very weak and sickly condition ; and 

 the fruit, which had been previously estimated at 90 

 Ibs, weight, did not exceed 55 Ibs. when gathered, and 

 that of a very inferior description, in point of flavour 

 and size of berry. Its leaves also, having been thus 

 crippled, were shed prematurely a month before their 



