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Page: of 238
16 JANUARY 19, 1877 GRASS VALLEY UNION
The roofs are splendid; they irrigate books, papers, carpets and furniture and teach one to not swear
at any ordinary calamity of life.
THE FROST LINE.—In the mountains in this county and perhaps generally in the State,
there is a belt somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 ft. above the level of the sea that
is almost entirely exempt from frost The extent of that belt we do not know, but we know
gentlemen residing in it in different portions of the county and they are aware that no
killing frost has visited their places this winter. As a proof of this fact, if any other proof of
their assertions were needed, tomato vines are yet untouched and in bloom and bearing,
and all kinds of flowers are blooming in open and unprotected places. All over the valleys
there has been an unusual number of heavy frost this winter and also on the high mountain
tops, but this belt has enjoyed all the time real vernal weather. It seems to us that this fact
is not generally known and appreciated by our people, and we would be glad hear from
someone who is posted and obtain full information on the subject,—Sonoma Democrat.
Grass Valley, this Winter, seems to have been in the belt where frosts give but little trouble,
since potatoes, green peas and many other tender plants have flourished and brought forth fruit, in
the open air, in this region—while down in the valleys the people who wanted to enjoy such things
had to resort to tin cans. We can easily account for this state of facts, and are enabled to do so by our
having very recently investigated the Espy theory of rains. The valleys are cold because the cold air,
being heavier than warm air, finds its way to the lower grounds. This is done, when there are no very
strong breezes, without the cold and warm air becoming mixed together. The cold air lifts the warm
up and supports it to about the altitude and a little above and a little below that of this town. Grass
Valley is about on the middle of this mild atmosphere which has been lifted up from the valleys.
When the warm air gets still higher—about its business as it were—it rapidly expands and renders
latent the heat contained in it. Hence the cold and frost of the valleys, the mildness of the foothills
and the cold of the higher mountains. If there is any body who does not believe our theory, let him
bring forward a better, and we will discuss the matter with him.
TREE TRIMMING.—The tree butchers are making themselves noticeable now-a-days
by their annual disfiguring of nature. Limbs are lopped off regardless of rule or object,
except to get rid of the wood, and the streets of the city in winter have a shockingly
ragged appearance because of the mutilation of the shade trees with which they are
lined. No one should trim off a limb unless he knows the reason therefore, and there
should be as much care given the work as is bestowed upon the ornamentation of a
garden.—Sacramento Record Union.
Those remarks are applicable to the fruit trees of this place. The tree trimmers too often
cut away limbs almost entirely, under the impression that the strength of the tree will go to the
production and high development of the fruit. Such persons forget, if they ever knew, that the leaves
of a tree make the breathing apparatus of the tree—the lung power thereof, as it were. When the leaf
bearing portion is taken away the tree must suffer in fording the growth of leaves. “The sap sours
then,” said an experienced fruit grower to us the other day, “and the fruit is spoiled.”
Another man who grows some fruit remarked to us when pointing to one of his trees, “that
confounded tree didn’t bear well last season, and yet I trimmed it closely; I am going to take off all
the limbs next time, and then I will get a crop.” Of course he is going to keep his trees trimmed down
to that they must gradually die, instead of bearing fruit. But it is no use talking to him.
NEW EXPLOSIVE.—The Giant Powder Company are manufacturing the Judson Powder, which
is cheaper than ordinary black powder and is much stronger. It is designed mainly for the same
description of work for which black powder is used. It is not “a high explosive,” and it is claimed to