364 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
upon the benefits which might result to agriculture, and particu- 
larly to horticulture, from an expedition to the coast of China. 
That country has a climate very similar to our own, arising from 
its similar position on the eastern edge of a great continent. Both 
are dry, and subject to greater vicissitudes of heat and cold than 
countries in the interior, or on the other side of the great conti- 
nent. -This being the case, the vegetable productions suitable to 
the one, cannot but thrive well in the other. 
China has been a long time civilized, and the whole extent of 
its coast been for ages under a government which has paid more 
attention to agriculture than any other government that has ever 
existed. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to be other- 
wise, but that the vegetables and fruits of the various climates 
have been acclimated to a degree much beyond what they have 
with us, or in Europe, from whence we derive our fruits and 
vegetables. 
The territories of China embracing both sides of the tropic, 
we have every reason to believe that the productions of the south 
have been extended as far as possible to the north, and those of 
the north to the south. 
By getting, therefore, fruits and vegetables from a country thus 
situated, we get the advantage of a thousand or more years of 
acclimation. 
For instance, we get our apples and pears from England and 
France. The apple we have not yet acclimated as far south as 
Georgia. There are, we believe, only one or two varieties, which, 
in the upper part of that state, prove fruitful in some years. Their 
flavour is very indifferent. So with the pear. Coming from the 
latitude of from forty-two to fifty, it is unproductive south of Bal- 
timore ; and so with other fruits. 
Who can doubt but that, in a country in which the extension 
and prosperity of agriculture have been the great object of govern- 
ment, their fruits and other vegetables have, in the course of 
fifteen hundred years, been extending gradually to the south, so 
as to become used to a climate which it will take us nearly the 
same period to reach with the varieties of fruits which we now 
have. It is the same with the fruits and vegetable productions 
of the south. The tropical fruits and vegetables must have been 
brought as far north as they can be profitably cultivated. From 
