206 



On the advance of Springs 



TABLE II. 



Mean time of beginning 

 to flower, in the most 

 favorable situations. 



March 14. 



March 30. 

 April 1. 

 April 5. 



Skunk Cabbage, Symplocdrpus fce'tidus. 



Earliest, Feb. 20, 1828. Latest, Ap. 2, 1836 

 Common American Hazel, Corylus ameri- 



cilna . . . 

 Earliest Anemone, Anemone hepdtica 

 American Aspen, Fopulus tremulotdes 

 Single sweet-scented Garden V^iolet, Ytola 



odoruta ....... 



Common American Elm, Vlmus americitna 

 Blood root, Sanguinuria canadensis . . 

 Early Saxifrage, Saxifraga virginiensis 

 Sweet Fern, Comptbn'ia. •Asplenifblia . . 

 Black Birch, Betula lenta .... 



Early dwarf garden Iris .... 



Early white Violet, Yiola bldnda . . 



Viola cucullclla and Muh- 



lenbergii 

 Yiola peduta 

 Early Bellwort, Uvuldria sessilifblia . . 

 Poplar-leaved Birch, Betula populifblia 

 Sassafras, Laurus sassafras 

 Choke Cherry, Friinus obovCita Bigelow 



The flowering of plants will not accord very exactly with 

 the mean of the thermometer for the several weeks and months 

 of spring. The common native, and many of the cultivated 

 herbaceous plants, will advance steadily though slowly, in a 

 moderate or cool temperature, especially if the ground is heat- 

 ed by the direct rays of the sun; while many trees and some 

 cultivated plants, such as Indian corn, beans, cucumbers, &.c., 

 will scarcely grow at all unless the weather is quite warm, and 

 in a few hot days they will make more progress than in as many 

 weeks of cool weather. 



Backward springs are inconvenient to the farmer, especially 

 when they are wet as well as cold, as they generally are. 

 They greatly delay the ploughing of the ground and the sowing 

 of seed, and force the work of the season into a short period of 

 warm weather, near the end of it. They are also justly un- 

 welcome to all, and especially to the sick and the invalid, be- 

 ing doubtless unfavorable to health, while they subtract a por- 

 tion of warm weather fiom the warm season, which is never 

 long enough in this climate. But it does not appear that they 

 exert any unfavorable influence on the fruit or on the crops. 



