CLIMATE. 19 



trees are found to suffer least of all from early and de- 

 structive frosts, and from winter. 



Delicate trees and plants, the natives of southern climes, 

 become more hardy, and more capable of supporting the 

 northern winters, by being planted on the north sides of 

 buildings, and in their shade. Their growth being thus 

 modified, the exposure to the most intense degree of cold, 

 in such situations, is more than compensated by the pro- 

 tection which is thus afforded to the plants during winter, 

 from the pernicious and far more destructive rays of the sun. 



More delicate shrubs or plants may be protected by 

 being surrounded by a thin covering of straw. They may 

 also be protected by a few inches of litter placed around 

 their trunks, and over their roots. Moss from the mead- 

 ows, or evergreen boughs, being more incorruptible, are to 

 be preferred for delicate plants. For it has been lately 

 announced, as an important fact, that the destruction of 

 delicate plants, which is sometimes occasioned by winter, 

 is caused by the alternate freezing and thawing of the 

 earth at its surface ; that death commences at the surface, 

 which this protection will prevent. 



Those selections of fruits those select lists, which the 

 late eminent English writers so highly recommend were 

 evidently never designed for us ; but as peculiarly adapted 

 to other climes, and to high northern latitudes, and to that 

 country for which alone these celebrated works were prin- 

 cipally designed ; since beneath our serene and cloudless 

 skies, and a sun more powerful and intense in its heat, 

 many of them appear, on trial, to have lost that high repu- 

 tation, which they could only have acquired in a northern 

 country, with a clouded and humid atmosphere ; and, with 

 some few eminent exceptions, they will not compare with 

 those natives of our own climate, or with those of other 

 climates equally favored with us; while, on the other 

 hand, the finest selections, during two centuries, from the 

 innumerable native orchards of America, and the finest 

 fruits from Italy, seem to have shared in that climate a 

 most disastrous fate. 



These remarks will serve to show the manifest impro- 

 priety of adopting without reflection, and without a trial, 

 those select lists of fruits, which, from necessity, alone, are 

 formed on exclusive principles, and as the best adapted to 

 another and a foreign country, and another climate, and 

 with no reference whatever to a Delate like ours. 



