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While, in the general, European climates are much warmer than American on the same parallel, England is an exception to the rule. While in Upper Canada, on the same parallel, sixty days in summer, with a clear tropical heat, frequently as high as 102 degrees, are sufficient to mature Indian corn, here the heat is rarely up to 80, and it cannot be grown.
In Canada in winter the cold is frequently 30 degs. below zero: here it seldom falls to 20 degrees above it. Fortunate Island! With a friendly cloud to intercept the scorching rays of the sun in summer, and the Gulf Stream to subdue the extreme cold of winter, it has a climate, of great salubrity; its hills and valleys are clothed with verdure; its agricultural products (Indian corn to the contrary notwithstanding) are immense, and the only objection to it is—that it is too small.
Grapes and Hops.
The high range of the thermometer in the Northern States, during midsummer, with the peculiar atmospheric influence of lakes, have caused an anomaly in production. Here, so 'far, has the grape found its favourite habitation. The coldness of these bodies of water in spring retards the budding of the vines, and their warmth postpones the frosts of Autumn, and gives time for the maturity of the purple clusters. Out of 24,000 acres cultivated in the grape, east of the Rocky Mountains, perhaps more than half are in New York and around Lake Erie. In the former, one county, Steuben, has 4,000, and a single county in northern Ohio—Cuyahoga, nearly 6,000 acres in cultivation, all native varieties, for no foreign one has ever succeeded there, except under glass.
Another product, the hop, is cultivated in many localities. Its favorite home is Wisconsin, where in one county—Sauk—more hops are made than in any county in the world—Kent, in England, not excepted. The special reason for this success maybe, perhaps, the heat of the summer—the severity of the winters,which freeze up and destroy insects which delight in sucking up its juices, and a current of dry air from the west, about the season of maturity, which prevents the blight which follows rains in other places.
Ignorance in America Respecting Climate.
Much greater ignorance is apparent even in America on this subject than would at first appear. Most Southerners imagine that if they can only grow sufficient cotton, or sugar, to take them north during the summer months,, where during June, July, and August, they can manage to keep cool, they will be healthy during the remainder of the year; and while sweltering in Northern watering places, and "roasting" in Northern cities, they console themselves in enduring the great heat, by the mistaken belief that it is an unusually heated term for that climate, and that it must be much warmer at their southern homes.
On the other hand. Northerners who have spent the winter in the South in search of health or profit, hasten away at the first warm breath of summer, impelled by the same delusion.
On the 28th day of last June, the thermometer in Havana and Mobile was at 82 degrees, in Key West and New Orleans at 84 degrees, in Buffalo at 87 degrees, but in New York City at 94 degrees. By comparing the telegraphic advices from various portions of the country and the West Indies, it will be perceived that New York on that day was, thermometrically, although not geographically, nearer the equator and the torrid zone, than either Florida or Cuba, by fully 10 degrees. Could Southern tourists, in search of cool and more invigorating climates, have been returned on that
