. 40 Infiuence of Climate on the Fruitfulness of Plants, 



apple of the south is too acerb to be either eaten or preserved. 

 The plumbs, apricots, cherries, currants, gooseberries, &c. will 

 not even mature until we go far north. All the trees which 

 bear these delicious fruits will grow luxuriantly in the south, 

 make much foliage and wood, with but little pulp, and that un- 

 savory. The kernel in the one-seeded fruit, seems to be the first 

 object of nature in southern climes : that becomes strong, oily, and 

 enlarged ; and one of the peach family has so entirely neglected 

 the pulp, that it has only a husky matter around the kernel, as 

 the almond. The changeableness of the weather in the south, 

 in the spring season, throws plants off their guard; the frosts at- 

 tendant on those changes, destroy the young fruit ; and it is only 

 one year in three that the crop hits at all. The desiccated or 

 dried state of these fruits enables us to enjoy them through the 

 year ; but in the south their acidity carries them into fermenta- 

 tion or decomposition before they can be divested of their aque- 

 ous parts. The climate of the south is equally against convert- 

 ing them into cider, or any other fermented liquor, because the 

 - heat forces their compressed juice so rapidly into an active fer- 

 mentation, that it cannot easily be checked until it passes into 

 vinegar. For the same reason distillation goes on badly in hot 

 climates, and cannot be checked long enough at the proper point 

 to give much alcohol ; and whether we aim to enjoy the delicious 

 freshness of these fruits themselves, sip the nectarin of their juices, 

 refresh ourselves with their fermented beverage, stimulate our 

 hearts with their brandies and cordials, or feast through the win- 

 ter upon the dried or preserved stores of their fruits, we are con- 

 tinually baulked by the severity of a southern climate', and for 

 such enjoyment must look to the north. 



The melons are always affected by too great a degree of heat, 

 even though their vines flourish so much in southern latitudes. 

 The forcing sun hurries them on to maturity before they have 

 attained much size, or acquired that rich saccharine and aroma- 

 tic flavour for which they are so much esteemed. The cante- 

 lope melon will rot, or have its sides baked by a hot sun, before 

 it is fully formed ; and the water-melon is always woody, dry, and 

 devoid of its peculiar sweetness and richness in the south. Vines 

 have been known to run 100 feet, and bear no melon. It is in 

 Philadelphia, and its neighbourhood, and in similar latitudes, that 

 the markets are loaded with delicious melons of all sorts, whose 



