314 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE RECENT RAINFALL. 



Drip, drip, drip. Never has so much rain fallen 

 these four years past as we have had this winter. The 

 umbrella, goloshe, and mackintosh manufacturers are 

 perfectly jubilauf. Far otherwise, however, fares with 

 those in the country, who, with their hands in their 

 pockets, flatten their noses against the window panes, 

 or pace the house impatiently, to the misery of the in- 

 mates generally, and themselves inparticular, thinking- 

 of their flooded fields and the pitiable condition of their 

 sheep folded on turnips. Much-enduring brother, I 

 sympathise with thee in this vision of unmitigated ruin. 



Returning the other day, dripping wet, from a long 

 visit of inspection, rendered difficult and irritating by 

 reason of the continued rain, I began to cogitate by 

 the fire, after having changed my clothes, concerning 

 the true effect of these perverse showers, and sure 

 enough I found this laudable intention produced its 

 own efficient reward. My discontent vanislied as I 

 discovered the secret influence of the rain upon my 

 own land, and I dreamed that night that the little drops 

 of rain were changed in colour — they were yellow — 

 and upon closer inspection I found that a golden rain 

 had fallen to enrich me. 



It is well that we should thus scrutinize those dis- 

 pensations that we consider afflictive, for nine times out 

 often we should find them friends in disguise. 



Well, then, what is this rain, and what good does it 

 do? Rain is the return to the earth, in condensed 

 drops, of the aqueous vapours which are raised in the 

 atmosphere by the sun and wind; this condensation 

 being occasioned by a change in the general tempera- 

 ture, by a collision produced by contrary cui'rents, or 

 by a cloud passing into a cold stratum of air. Water 

 expands and rarifies by heat. The quantity of vapour 

 which the air is capable of receiving and supporting is 

 regulated by its heat. Hot air will hold more vapour 

 than cold ; and when air, saturated with vapour, is 

 cooled, it causes the vapour it contains to contract, and 

 be precipitated either in rain or mist. Thus earth is 

 supplied with moisture ; and air, released of a portion 

 of its charge, is prepared for the reception of a fresh 

 supply in the shape of exhalation. Here are, then, two 

 operations for us to consider : — 1st. The air supplied 

 with vapour. 2nd. The earth supplied with moisture. 



We have all read of the sirocco, a periodical wind 

 which blows every year in Italy and Dalmatia, from 

 the south, about Easter time, and continues twenty 

 days. This wind is described as peculiarly prejudicial 

 to animal and vegetable life, producing great lassitude 

 in the one, and burning up the sap in the other. The 

 simoom, which prevails at certain seasons over the 

 Great Deseit of Africa, and is dreaded by the Arab and 

 his camel, being fatal to life if not carefully guarded 

 against, is very much of the same character. Now, 

 we do not know wliat air really would be without 

 vapour; but I imagine it would be something anala- 

 gous in its effects to these destructive winds, which in 

 passing over the arid plains of the East lose all their 

 moisture, and thus blast the life they are intended to 

 sustain. From this cause many tracts of country are 

 uninhabitable. There is now three times as much 

 water as land to compose the surface of this globe, and 

 this proportion leaves many regions very spare of 

 moisture. Had water and land been in the relation 

 of 2 to 2, much land that is now habitable would not 

 have been so, simply because the area from which 

 evaporation would in tli.it ca<c have proceeded would 



have been too small to give the proper supply of 

 vapour to the air, men would have perished with a 

 parching thirst and a shrivelled skin, and vegetation 

 would have been burnt up. Of two gases, the one 

 exciting life and quickening combustion, the other 

 highly inflammable, thus chemically combined, are 

 formed a ponderable liquid named water, which eva- 

 porating passes as vapour into the air, extending a 

 softening quenching influence through all organic 

 nature. Seeing that vegetable and animal existence 

 depends upon the presence of a requisite amount of 

 moisture in the air we breathe, we will pass to the 

 second consideration. 



The effects produced by the rains as they descend 

 through the earth are very various, and require to bo 

 noticed separately. 



I take it of course for granted that the rains do pass 

 through the open pores of our soils, and are let off 

 through the drains at some 36 or 48 inches from the 

 surface, into the ditches, after having fulfilled their 

 mission of fertilization. Should the land, however, 

 be what is generally termed " heavy and undrained,'' 

 the rain will generally run over the surface, dissolving 

 and carrying away whatever of value it may meet with, 

 to the nearest ditch. This process of course im- 

 poverishes the land, and of course farmers occupying 

 land under such circumstances are low-spirited in pro- 

 portion as the clouds form, and seem determined upon 

 a wet night. These gentlemen have, of course, made 

 up their mind to expend more money in working their 

 stiff soils; they are content to deal in naked fallows; 

 they think a late seed-time, and a late harvest, and a 

 worse quality of produce, better than the reverse, and 

 are not at all careful to perform their quota towards 

 improving the climate generally; and, with respect to 

 this lastpoint,I beg them to remember that the soil being 

 thoroujihly saturated with water, what is left must be 

 carried off by evaporation; and, as every gallon of 

 water thus carried off by evaporation requires as much 

 heat as would raise five-and-a-half gallons from the 

 freezing to the boiling point, the warmth al)stracted 

 from tlie atmosphere and from the soil is verj consi- 

 derable. A writer in the " Quarterly Review" states 

 that 1 lb. of water evaporated from 1,000 lbs. of soil 

 will reduce the temperature of the whole 10°. Sup- 

 posing the individual in question indifferent to such 

 showing, I pass on to notice then those benefits that 

 drained soils derive from rain. 



Wo have come recently to attach very much im- 

 portance to the admission of air to our upper and sub- 

 soil. It fertilizes the eaiths, and feeds the roots of the 

 plants. Mechanically and chemically it is essentially 

 necessary to vegetation that the air should descend to 

 the root, as well as play about the breathing leaves of 

 the plant. Well, the rain finding its way down through 

 the subsoil to the drain is followed by the air, and every 

 shower of raiu expels the old supply, and makes way 

 for a new one, bearing with it nourishment and warmth. 

 This is one benefit. 



The rain, in falling through an atmosphere of tempe- 

 rature higher than that of the earth, carries warmth 

 with it to the depth of the drains, should the descent be 

 copious. The writer, in the Review I have just quoted, 

 further states : "The temperature of the ground three 

 feet below the surface, in England, is rarely more than 

 46 to 48 deg. ; and hence rain falling during summer, 

 often of a temperature of GO to 70 deg., raises the tem- 



