SITE FOE AN ORCHARD. 205 



The warmer exposure of a southern slope may, and ofteu 

 does, favor the premature swelling of the buds and starting 

 of the sap during mild, pleasant, and bright weather in the 

 winter, and vegetation is often seriously injured from this 

 cause. -<%'} 



In many parts of the country, it is much more im- 

 portant to consider the exposure to the prevailing winds 

 of the region, and to select the site and aspect that shall 

 enjoy the benefit of protection. This, I am aware, is a 

 proposition that has had opponents, as well as advocates, in 

 the broad savannas of the West, where, especially, it be- 

 comes a question of the greatest importance. There are 

 benefits as well as evils attendant upon the motionsof the 

 atmosphere. The swaying of the limbs, when agitated 

 by the breeze, gives them tone and strength, and may as- 

 sist in the circulation of the sap within their cells ; and 

 the constant agitation of the atmosphere, commingling the 

 warmer with the colder portions, will often modify the 

 temperature to such an extent as to give an immunity from, 

 the frost in the open prairie, at the same moment that the 

 more tranquil air, within a limited clearing of forest lands, 

 has been cooled down, by radiation, to the frost point. On 

 every account, therefore, the moderate and reasonable ex- 

 posure to the influences of a mobile atmosphere is rather 

 to be courted than shunned. 



The views that have been advanced by the advocates 

 of protection for orchards on the prairies, have been some- 

 what modified since they were first promulgated. We are 

 now told, by those who have opposed "protection," that 

 narrow timber-belts of evergreens and deciduous trees, 

 should be planted on the windward sides of orchards, to 



