_The Lower Austral Province_ (Plate III).--This province embraces the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States from Connecticut southward, with the exception of the tropical portion of southern Florida; the Mississippi basin south of the mouth of the Ohio; and includes also many of the valleys amid the Pacific mountains from the northern boundary of California to central Mexico. The larger geographical conditions on which the boundaries of the province depend are the warm currents in the Atlantic, which ameliorate the temperature of the adjacent land as well as supply it with abundant moisture; the low elevation of the central continental basin, which permits of great extension northward of the climatic conditions originating about the Gulf of Mexico; and the mountainous character of the western portion of the province, where the valleys have a markedly different temperature and rainfall from the highlands. The most southern portions of the lower austral province within the border of the United States has a semitropical climate and is characterized by its high mean annual temperature, abundant rainfall, and uniformity of weather conditions throughout the year. The summers are hot, but tempered by winds from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, and the winters, although normally mild and without snow, are varied at intervals by periods of cold which bring occasional frosts. This semitropical division of the lower austral province embraces a narrow strip of coast-land extending from South Carolina to southeastern Texas, with the exception of the extreme southern end of Florida, and forms a transition between the hotter and more humid tropical province to the southward and the cooler and less humid region to the northward. As the saying is, a tree is judged by its fruit; in a similar way we may judge of the climate of a region by its products. The Gulf strip of the lower austral province is the home of a number of plants and animals not found farther north, as, for example, the cabbage palmetto and Cuban pine, and several species of birds and small mammals. Among the agricultural products of this narrow coastal belt which are suggestive of its climate are rice, sugar-cane, and sea-island cotton; of fruits it produces, especially in Florida, oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, shaddocks, and pineapples.