Mean Besults of the Thermometer at Alford, 151 



with liquid was applied, even on very dry land, the crop was 

 good ; while on the same land, with dry manure, there was a 

 complete failure. The grain crops at first promised to be 

 early ; but much rain in May, and cold cloudy weather in 

 June and July, retarded them greatly, and they were very 

 late at the beginning of August. During this last month, 

 and till the 10th of September, unusually fine weather for 

 the season, enabled the grain crops, even those of them that 

 were previously much laid, to ripen well. The oat harvest 

 commenced generally about the middle of September, and 

 was finished by the middle of October, excepting in very late 

 places ; and there has been no previous harvest during which 

 the great advantage of the scythe-reaping was more clearly 

 manifested. During the one month of harvest, there were 

 seventeen rainy days ; but the great expedition of the scythe- 

 reaping, and the elastic open sheaf made by it, enabled the 

 cultivators to cut down and carry a good grain crop, in the 

 best order, during the intervening dry days, which were very 

 windy. The after part of the year permitted the other opera- 

 tions of the field to be put in a sufficient state of forwardness 

 before winter. 



May 20. 1841. — I have just received from William Craigie, 

 Esq., surgeon, Ancaster, Upper Canada, a striking confirma- 

 tion of the fact, that the dryness of the soil was the cause of 

 the failure of the potatoes here in 1840. He says in a letter, 

 " I observe the accounts of the failure of your potato crop, 

 and doubt not simple dryness is the cause. In this dry cli- 

 mate potatoes in drills often fail. They are, therefore, gene- 

 rally cultivated in hills, having a cup or funnel in the centre 

 to catch its fill from every thunder shower — often the only 

 rain we have — and which would run from the drills without 

 penetration, and all the dew which runs down the stems, and 

 is at times very abundant." 



