8TTE FOE AN ORCHARD. ]99 



propriated to this important crop ; for the orchard is a 

 permanent investment, and so much depends upon the site, 

 that we should make some sacrifice of our convenience, 

 rather than commit any error in this particular. In the 

 first place, then, let it be understood that the orchard 

 should be well exposed to the sun and air. The least • de- 

 sirable positions for orchard planting are narrow valleys, 

 particularly limestone valleys in a mountainous country, 

 traversed by a small brook, or where the surface is spouty 

 from springs or sudjacent water. Even if such depres- 

 sions are considerably elevated, but surrounded by higher 

 and abrupt elevations, they will be found obnoxious to 

 late and early frosts in spring and fall, especially the for- 

 mer, which are often disastrous in such situations, after 

 the fruit-buds have expanded in these sheltered nooks. Ev- 

 ery one at all conversant with meteorological observations 

 made in a broken country, is aware of the different range 

 of temperature that will be indicated by instruments sus- 

 pended at different elevations,* When the cooling tnflu- 

 ence of radiation has lowered the temperature of the sur- 

 face of the earth and of objects near it, the stratum of 

 air in immediate contact will be chilled, and growing 

 heavier, will flow down into the most depressed situations, 

 and, accumulating there, will cause a difference of several 

 degrees of temperature. This, when near the freezing 

 point, will be of the greatest consequence to tender vege- 

 tation, which may be preserved in perfect safety at forty 

 degrees, but will be destroyed at thirty degrees, or even 

 at a higher point, in some cases. 



* Sep Lnwrence Voung's Experiments, in Weatern HorCicuHural Review^ Vol. 

 I. page 190, in Report of Kentucky State Fruit Committee to American Pomoln- 

 glcal Cungre>s, for 1850. 



