It is this
and not cold winds which the peasants of Southern Europe fear for their
olives.*** Seedlings are often protected from radiation by a very thin
covering of straw; and fruit-trees on walls by a few fir-branches, or even
by a fishing-net, suspended over them. There is a variety of the
gooseberry,**** the flowers of which from being produced before the leaves,
are not protected by them from radiation, and consequently often fail to
yield fruit. An excellent observer***** has remarked
* Pfeffer, 'Die Period. Beweg. der Blattorgane.' 1875, p. 159.
** 'Die Nat. Wagerechte Richtung von Pflanzentheilen,' 1870, p. 52
*** Martins in 'Bull. Soc. Bot. de France,' tom. xix. 1872. Wells, in his
famous 'Essay on Dew,' remarks that an exposed thermometer rises as soon as
even a fleecy cloud, high in the sky, passes over the zenith.
**** 'Loudon's Gardener's Mag.,' vol. iv. 1828, p. 112.
***** Mr. Rivers in 'Gardener's Chron.,' 1866, p. 732.
[page 285]
that one variety of the cherry has the petals of its flowers much curled
backwards, and after a severe frost all the stigmas were killed; whilst at
the same time, in another variety with incurved petals, the stigmas were
not in the least injured.
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