1 6 Vineyard Culture. 



tion until all danger of spring frosts has passed by. When 

 the sap starts, at last, everything goes on rapidly, and without 

 check. The mean temperature rises to a sufficient hight for 

 the grape, and the accumulated warmth of the lake water 

 modifies the temperature, so as to prevent autumnal frosts, and 

 the season is prolonged in the same ratio that it was shortened 

 in the spring, and the necessary length of time is furnished 

 for the maturation of the fruit. 



It has been demonstrated, for a series of years, that grapes 

 will ripen in such situations, when favored by these influences, 

 although they fail to reach maturity at inland situations much 

 further south, as in the interior of Ohio. 



For further details, and illustrations of the happy influence 

 of our lakes, the reader is referred to essays and discussions, 

 to be found in the Reports of the Societies above mentioned, 

 which can be had of the Secretary, M. B. Bateham, Paines- 

 ville, Ohio. 



The following remarks upon this subject, are from an 

 article on the " Climatology of American Grapes," by Jas. S. 

 Lippincott, of New Jersey, which may be found in the An- 

 nual Report of the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, 

 D. C., 1862, p. 206: 



" The meliorating influence of our lakes is too marked to 

 escape our attention. The peninsula of Michigan, northern 

 Ohio, western New York, and western Vermont, show 

 higher temperatures near the lake, and the abrupt curves of 

 the isotherms, from the upper Mississippi valley to Lake 

 Michigan, prove that altitude is not the cause of their me- 

 lioration. The success attending fruit-growing in western 

 New York, may be properly attributed to the influences of 

 Lake Ontario and the minor lakes of that district. The 

 spring frosts do not occur so late as at points further in the 

 interior, and the expanse of melting ice retards vegetation until 

 the season is so far advanced that it escapes injury therefrom. 



