302 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
often snow pon the downs of Kent as early as on the lower or middle slopes 
of the Grampians. 
The setting in of early dry and warm weather in Britain, before the cold has 
given way upon the continent, is the great cause of the blighting east winds of 
spring, which are the most destructive of any by which Britain is visited. 
They destroy the buds of the early fruit-trees, hurt the prematurely expanded 
buds of flowering shrubs, prevent the early sown or transplanted annuals from 
coming properly to maturity, and, generally speaking, injure the whole vege¬ 
tation, whether natiye or cultivated, within the range of their action. In like 
manner, the autumnal floods are occasioned by protracted warmth in Britain 
after the cold has set in on the continent; and these are the grand causes 
from which those engaged in cultivation must form their prognostic of the 
succession of seasons, that is, of the weather, whether the space cultivated by 
the prognosticator be a farm, or ornamental park, or a single flower-bed. 
The cause both of the early and late growth in Britain is drought in the soil, 
which occasions a more than usual absorption of heat, which penetrates 
beyond the average depth. A dry, and therefore a warm spring, summer, and 
early autumn, are the circumstances which produce this excess of temperature ; 
and when the rain or the snow sets in, a considerable portion of this heat is re¬ 
tained in the soil below these, or either of them ; and is in its turn the means of 
producing another warm and early season ; the corrective of this is occasional 
showery weather throughout the summer, though in not so great quantity as 
to soak the roots of plants, or prevent a wholesome blooming and fruiting ; 
for the water, being a bad conductor of heat, as compared with dry soil, the 
heat absorbed is inferior in quantity, and does not penetrate so deeply. 1841 
has been a year of this description; the natural inference is, it will not be too 
early, and that, consequently, much of the damage to plants will be avoided; 
at least, such is the consequence as grounded on the experience of former 
years. November has been throughout a month increasing in cold, with 
alternations of rain and frost; but, though a good deal of the former has fallen, 
it has probably not reached the average over the whole country. It appears 
also to have had little connexion with the continent, or with any thing else 
extrinsic of the country itself. This is inferable from the local extent of the 
different storms ; for, though in some of the more violent ones the course has 
extended to some distance from the district in which it was produced, this 
appears to have been owing more to the momentum of the air in rapid motion 
than to any general cause affecting the whole country. In illustration of this 
we might mention many storms which occurred, but we confine ourselves to 
a very violent thunder-storm which occurred near Petworth, in Sussex, and 
which was obviously produced by a collision between the air of the Downs and 
that of the Weald, ^hen these had very strongly opposed electric tendencies. 
Such are the facts ; the conclusion, in the first instance, is, that the heat of 
the soil of Britain is not too high ; and from that again may be inferred, as a 
secondary evidence, that the ensuing spring will not be early, but that it 
will be safe. Subject, howevei’, as we are to the opposing influence of two 
atmospheres besides our own one. circumstances may occur overturning even 
our most rational conclusions. 
