98 VITAL ACTIONS. 



■■■^* To collect together evidence as to the real 

 amount of temperature at the different seasons of 

 vegetation, in various parts of the globe, would be to 

 render a most important service to horticulture ; for 

 it is hopeless to expect that the cultivation of plants 

 can be perfect, in the absence of one of the first data 

 that require to be ascertained. What, for instance, 

 are the terrestrial and atmospheric temperatures of 

 the melon fields of Persia, Bokhara, Spain, or Smyrna, 

 where that delicious fruit acquires its greatest ex- 

 cellence ? In the meanwhile, the few facts recorded 

 in the following table will serve to show the prac- 

 tical imporfance of such information, it being borne 

 in mind that, as has been already shown (119,) the 

 mean temperature of the soil will probably be, on an ■ 

 average, a degree or two above the recorded means 

 of the warmest and coldest months. Thus, the tem- 

 perature of the earth at Calcutta, for instance, may 

 be computed to be not more than 88°, nor less than 

 72° ; and if we compare places so similar in climate 

 as Marseilles, Vienna, and London, it will be found 



years, (from 1826 to 1839 inclusive,) as deduced from observations 

 made under the direction of the Regents of the University, and 

 embodied in their Report for 1840, is 44-31° Fahr. The lowestmean 

 for a single year of observations at many stations, is 44'11° (1836); 

 the highest, 49-99° for (1828.) The mean temperature of the 

 ■warmest and coldest months, for a series of years, have not been 

 embodied, but somewhat ample data have been collected. At 

 Albany, the mean temperature of the coldest month for 1839 

 (January) -was 23-38°; of the warmest month (July), 72-38°. On 

 Long Island, near the city of New-York, the mean temperature of 

 the coldest month in the same year was 28-89, and of the warmest 

 (July) 70-69°. G.] 



