SITE FOR AX ORCHARD. 203 



very steadily, but slowly; and besides, as the surface of 

 the land cools by radiation and condenses the watery va- 

 por, it receives accessions of temperature that had been 

 locked np, or was insensible in the vapor. Hence we find 

 that in these places, though the opening of spring was re- 

 tarded a month, the approach of winter and autumnal 

 frosts is warded off for two months, making the season 

 really one month longer than in the same latitude inland. 



It must be confessed, however, that the subject of me- 

 teorology is not fully understood. We have but a glim- 

 mering of the light that we hope is to be shed upon the 

 subject when the deductions from millions of observations, 

 long continued and systematically conducted, shall have 

 been wrought out for the benefit of the orchardist and the 

 general agriculturist. 



We also have storms accompanied by a low temperature, 

 passing across the country, in which, at times, the great- 

 est intensity of cold is at the southern border. Such a 

 one passed from the west to the east in January, 1852, in 

 which the mercury, near Marietta, O., sank to thirty de- 

 grees below zero ; at Zanesville, O., on the same river, it 

 was twenty-seven degrees ; at Lancaster, O., thirty-two 

 degrees; while at Cleveland, O., it was only fifteen de- 

 grees below, and at Aurora, on Cayuga Lake, N. Y., 

 influenced by the unfrozen water, its greatest depression 

 was only fou.r degrees below zero.* 



ASPECT. When considering the orchard site, the best 

 aspect of the ground becomes a matter of interesting in- 

 quiry. To all vegetation, the morning .sun is a welcome 

 visitant after the night's repose ; for plants, as well as ani- 



* Western Horticultural Review; also, Statistics of Sform, Jan. I, 1864. 



