Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/103

 sheltered vallies. The same remark is applicable to many of the garden shrubs and flowers.

7. The very low temperature of the summers, and the want of sufficient sunshine, prevent many of the common fruits from attaining that richness of flavour, and security of full maturation, which they possess in the inland counties. The vine very rarely ripens its fruit in the open air; and the wall-fruits, in general, are inferior, in point of flavour, to those of other counties, particularly the peach.

8. The apricot rarely produces any fruit, except in a few places, and then very scantily. The greengage plum is nearly equally unproductive. The walnut and common hazel-nut very seldom bear any fruit, although the latter is sufficiently productive more to the eastward in the county.

9. A further consequence of the cool summers is the comparative lateness of the harvests in this district. This is, indeed, not very considerable, still it is sufficiently obvious. From an account now before me, of the date at which harvest commenced, on a farm in the immediate vicinity of Penzance, for a period of seventeen years, it appears that the average period of commencement is the 12th of August; the earliest is the 3rd, and the latest the 27th.

10. Cornwall, like Scotland, is proverbial for its want of trees; and it is more excusable than Scotland, for there they will grow if planted, here, in many cases, they will not. All the high grounds and exposed uplands, may be said to be nearly destitute of trees. In close and sheltered vallies they grow very well. Almost all sorts of shrubs grow very well every where, and also trees until they