Records of Frost. 125 



of fifty years or more ; in showing the effects of 

 adjacent bodies of water; in the effects of topog- 

 raphy, and in situation. 



"The effect of topography is shown well in the 

 cases already cited, eastern and western New York 

 and Pennsylvania. It is equally true of Virginia 

 and West Virginia, and North Carolina and Ten- 

 nessee. The effect of situation is shown markedly 

 in the case of Maine, which is north of New 

 Hampshire and Vermont, and yet earlier. Georgia's 

 season opens twenty -one days later than South Car- 

 olina's, and ten days later than Alabama's, while 

 North Carolina is ten days later." 



The liability of any particular locality to injury 

 from late spring or early fall frosts is capable of 

 being expressed in charts or by other graphic 

 means. Very good records of the habitual frosti- 

 ness of any place could be made by an army of 

 careful growers who had neither a barometer nor a 

 thermometer. Let us suppose, for instance, that the 

 peach - growers of a certain geographical area were 

 to make observations for a number of years upon 

 the relative synchronisms of late frosts and bloom- 

 ing-time, a subject which is of the most vital im- 

 portance to every grower of the tender fruits. The 

 tabulation of these observations would enable us to 

 construct two series of curves, which would indicate 

 at a glance the comparative safety of an}- station 

 for the cultivation of the given crop. We will 

 suppose that observations have been taken for a 

 number of years by various persons at seventeen 



