The seasons are the same as in the Netherlands, but the
summer is warmer and begins more suddenly. The winter is
cold, and further inland, or towards the most northerly part,
colder than in the Netherlands. It is also subject to much
snow, which remains long on the ground, and in the interior,
three, four and five months; but near the seacoast it is
quickly dissolved by the southerly winds. Thunder, lightning,
rain, showers, hail, snow, frost, dew and the like, are the
same as in the Netherlands, except that in the summer sudden
gusts of wind are somewhat more frequent.

The land is adapted to the production of all kinds of
winter and summer fruits, and with less trouble and
tilling than in the Netherlands. It produces different
kinds of woods, suitable for building houses and ships,
whether large or small, consisting of oaks of various
kinds, as post-oak, white smooth bark, white rough bark,
gray bark, black bark, and still another kind which they
call, from its softness, butter oak, the poorest of all,
and not very valuable; the others, if cultivated as in
the Netherlands, would be equal to any Flemish or Brabant
oaks. It also yields several species of nut wood, in
great abundance, such as oil-nuts, large and small; walnut
of different sizes, in great abundance, and good for fuel,
for which it is much used, and chestnut, the same as in
the Netherlands, growing in the woods without order.
There are three varieties of beech--water beech, common
Beech, and hedge beech--also axe-handle wood, two species
of canoe wood, ash, birch, pine, fir, juniper or wild
cedar, linden, alder, willow, thorn, elder, and many other