on the Processes of Vegetation. 289 



tained a higher temperature by 30° than another placed on 

 the horizontal or level plane of the adjoining valley. This 

 difference is certainly enormous ; but it is proved beyond all 

 doubt that a slope, an inclined bank for instance, radiates less 

 by many degrees than the surface which is altogether hori- 

 zontal. Indeed, I think we may collect abundant proofs of 

 this important fact among the mountains and the valleys of 

 Italy. On the plains of Piedmont, the vines which are suf- 

 fered to attain a considerable altitude on lofty poles, planted 

 as their support, are detached from these poles towards the 

 approach of winter, and prostrated on the earth, where they 

 are secured from injury by the straw. This treatment pro- 

 tects them from the effects of the intense though short winter 

 which reigns on the plains of Piedmont; for, even at Turin, 

 the water in my room has been congealed into a solid mass of 

 ice throughout its entire extent. The olive succeeds in Tus- 

 cany ; but the almond, pomegranate, and plants of the Citrus 

 family flourish but imperfectly : and yet, on the acclivities of 

 the amphitheatre of the Apennines, which forms a semicircle 

 round the magnificent city of Genoa, you find that the pome- 

 granate, the lemon, and the orange mature their fruit and 

 luxuriate. Even the imperial city is indebted for her palm 

 branches to the palms which succeed in the open air at Nice. 

 Now, the only difference in these circumstances consists in a 

 reduction of the loss sustained by radiation, and the attem- 

 pered influence of the sea breeze, which more than counter- 

 balance the increase of warmth imparted by the sunbeams to 

 a more southern clime : perhaps even the excellence of Monte 

 Somma wines may have something to do with the acclivity on 

 which the vineyards are planted. To my vision, fruit trees 

 planted on terracesj and rising one above the other, in amphi- 

 theatrical form, appear beautiful; but this has become, I 

 suppose, unfashionable, because it happens to be a gem from 

 the antique. Now, restlessness in search of something new, 

 however absurd, is incessant. The ancients appear, in this 

 respect, to have known what they were about ; and I must 

 frankly confess that, in my estimation, they acted wisely, and 

 had the better of us, and that we are decidedly in the rear. 

 To this cause I attribute the remarkable fertility of the Land 

 of Judea in former times. Its susceptibility is sufficiently 

 apparent, and there still remain existing vestiges of this mode 

 of cultivating the flanks of the valleys, or the sides of the 

 diversified hills of Palestine, to a considerable altitude. It is 

 still, however, very questionable, whether low walls, con- 

 structed of brick, or of stone and mortar, quite vertical, 

 would succeed so well as the surface of a calcareous or sandy 

 Vol. IX. — No. 44. u 



