Climate of Eastern and Middle States of N. America. 409 



with them. I never heard of more than one soil containing 

 an uncombined acid, and that is in the Island of Java, near 

 Batavia. There is a small stream there which contains free 

 sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) ; its banks being impregnated by 

 it are, of course, barren. This stream flows into another, 

 which, passing rapidly through a tenacious soil, is turbid from 

 the mixture of aluminous particles with its waters. No sooner 

 does the acidulated stream mingle with them than they 

 become clear, for the acid combining the clayey particles 

 forms sulphate of alumina, which is a perfectly soluble salt. 



(jTo be continued.) 



Art, IX. On the Climate of the Eastern and Middle States of 

 North America, with Reference to Horticulture. By Mr. Wil- 

 liam Wilson of New York. 



Sir, 

 .The increase of correct knowledge on subjects in which 

 men feel interested is at least gratifying to them, and fre- 

 quently attended with benefit to others. Whether the result 

 of the present subject will be attended with either of these 

 effects in your country, I know not ; in this, I think, it may be 

 productive of both. 



America (I allude to the eastern and middle states) is a 

 country whose horticultural character can scarcely yet be 

 considered as formed, in an artificial point of view ; but there 

 are abundant evidences that it possesses a naturally far more 

 congenial climate for horticultural productions than most other 

 countries. The want of those external, artificial, horticultural 

 refinements, so conspicuous in European countries, and par- 

 ticularly in England, has been the ground of a very erroneous 

 and detrimental impression of the actual inferiority of its 

 climate to that of those countries. This impression has long 

 been augmented by the vast superiority which emigrants from 

 England very naturally, some of them very pertinaciously, 

 ascribe to the climate of their native land, being either unable 

 or unwilling to discriminate between the results of natural 

 and artificial effects. With a view to benefit my fellow-citi- 

 zens, by removing this impression, and to encourage them to 

 avail themselves of the favourableness of the climate, I have 

 endeavoured to demonstrate, by actual facts, its superiority to 

 that of England ; I have contrasted, I think upon a fair scale, 

 the horticultural effects of the natural powers of this climate 

 and that of England. If the grounds I have proceeded on 

 are just, the preference in favour of this climate, at least for 



