NEW ENGLAND CLIMATE. 151 



rendered passable after heavy storms. A mass of snow which 

 sixty years since might have rendered travelling in our thinly 

 peopled country all but impossible for weeks together, is now 

 cleared away or beaten down in a very few days. 



A single extract from Smith's Diary, (the work above re- 

 ferred to,) will show that former generations had their mild as 

 well as their severe winters. Under date of March 7, 1775, 

 he remarks, that the frost seemed out of the ground in 

 the streets of Falmouth, (now Portland,) and this he calls a 

 wonderful winter, and so it would now be considered. It was 

 not, however, unexampled, for Mount, in his relation of the 

 affairs of Plymouth, as quoted in Prince's Chronology, says 

 under the same date, in the year 1621 : "We begin to sow our 

 garden seeds." Had we fuller records on this subject, many 

 more such instances might be brought to lio-ht,* 



But unfortunately such observers as Smith and Holyoke, 

 have been at all times rare, though there is every reason to 

 hope, that they will be much more numerous in the present 

 condition of the natural sciences. It may be safely asserted, 

 however, that this idea of the gradual softening of our winters 

 finds less and less support in proportion as we descend from 

 general impressions to precise statistics. This is not the only 

 alteration supposed to have occurred in our New England 

 climate. It is a common impression, that our summer droughts 

 are more frequent, and of longer continuance than formerly. 

 K we could believe that there existed such a tendency in our 

 climate, it would certainly be a most unwelcome conclusion. 

 But the fact may be, not that these droughts are more severe 

 than formerly, but that their effects have become of more con- 

 sequence, and have been perceived in more ways by our present 

 far more numerous and wide-spread population. To say nothing 

 of these effects as exhibited on a wide extent of cultivated land. 



* Macgregor, in his elaborate work on the Progress of America, Vol. 2, p. 42, 

 observes, "That the Baron La Hontan, is recorded to have left Quebec, in 1690, 

 on the 20th of November. He adds that this is as late as any vessel can or will 

 leave that port at the present. Potrincourt and Champlain, on a Sunday, early in 

 January, 1607, sailed in a boat six miles up to Port Royal, (Annapolis, Nova 

 Scotia,) to visit a field of winter wheat, dined in the sunshine, enjoyed music in 

 the open air, &c. No winter since has been milder." 



