CLIMATE. 



33 



the plants well nourished and very succulent ; whilst the south 

 presents us only with productions replete with aroma, resin, 

 and volatile oil. Here every thing is converted into spirit, 

 there all is employed in imparting vigour. 



The characters so marked as regards vegetation, are also 

 extended to the phenomena of animalization, where spirit and 

 sensibility appear to be the appendages of southern climates, 

 whilst strength is the attribute of the inhabitants of the north. 

 Some travellers have observed that several insipid vegetables 

 of Greenland acquigtfjt taste and flavour in the gardens of 

 London. Reynier noticed that the melilotus, which in warm 

 countries has a penetrating odour, possesses none in Holland ; 

 and it is well known that the most subtle poisons of particular 

 plants, and of many animals, are extinguished and lose their 

 potency by degrees in those which exist in climates further 

 north. The saccharine quality of some vegetables is not 

 perfectly developed except in tropical countries ; the sugar 

 cane, often cultivated in our gardens, possesses scarcely any 

 of the saccharine principle ; and the grape itself is sour, harsh, 

 and insipid, when cultivated too far north. 



The aroma or perfume of the grape, as well as the saccharine 

 principle, are then the result of a bright and constant sun. The 

 sour or sharp juice which is contained in the fruit at its first 

 formation, cannot be suitably elaborated far to the north, and 

 this primitive character of immaturity is still retained when 

 the return of frost congeals the organs of maturation. 



In like manner the grape at the north, possessing to a great 

 degree the principles of putrefaction, contains scarcely any 

 element of spirituous fermentation ; and the juice expressed 

 from it, when it has gone through that process, produces a 

 sour liquor, containing barely sufficient alcohol to prevent the 

 advance of a putrid fermentation. 



With regard to the vine, as well as every other production of 

 nature, there exist climates which are peculiarly suitable, and in 

 Europe it is in those which lie between the thirty-fifth and 

 fiftieth degrees of latitude, that the most beneficial results are to 

 be attained from the culture of this most valuable vegetable pro- 



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