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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



that he has done good service by bringing his thirty 

 years' experience and observation to bear upon this 

 subject, in order to throw light upon what has hitherto 

 been shrouded in impenetrable darkness. It is said, 

 what has no precedent admits of no prognostic ; and 

 this may apply to the unprecedented state of the 

 weather at the equinox. Still we may judge from 

 analogy; and we shall, therefore, look with great in- 

 terest for the result, on which, in fact, depends much 

 more than the solution of a question in natural philo- 

 sophy. The husbandman will watch with deep anxiety 

 the progress of the season after so unpropitious a spring, 

 and will avail himself of any information that will ena- 

 ble him, if not to avert, to meet and alleviate, as far as 

 circumstances will permit, a prospective calamity. 



Sandgate, April 3, 1860. 

 I now wish to call your attention, and, through you, 

 public attention, to the connection which I am deeply per- 

 suaded myself exists in these latitudes between the atmos- 

 pheric phenomena prevailing during the spriug equinoctial 

 week from the 18th to 25th March, and the atmospheric 

 phenomena prevailing during the ensuing summer, so that 

 the one is an epitome or index of the other whenever it has 

 anything in it remarkable to distinguish it at all. It is 

 most desirable for the public gain that, if my convictions 

 are well founded, the fact should be known ; for there is 

 somethiug gained if, even only two or three months before- 

 hand, we should have a reasonable warning of what we 

 might probably expect in this matter. An admirable occa- 

 sion now presents itself for testing the truth of the views I 

 have enunciated, aud which I have examined into for thirty 

 years ; because during that period I never witnessed an 

 equinox resembling the last, or in any degree approaching it 

 in character. 



Almost always the weather is moderate in character, and 

 the wind during the week moves from every quarter. 

 This year the winds have two or three times blown from S , 

 S.W., W., and N. W. with the violence of a hurricane during 

 that week, aud they have never moved from any other 

 quarter. The sun was almost always clouded, the nights 

 alone on two or three occasions clear; and, in fact, the whole 

 week was a tempest, with intermissions from S.W., S , and 

 N.W. What all this is to lead to I do not know. I will 

 not venture one farthing upon the result, except in this, that 

 I venture my reputation in thus saying that I think there 

 exists a preintimation in March of remarkable atmospheric 

 phenomena following during the summer; and by thus 

 risking my name and reputation for a public always ready 

 to attack both, I venture what some would not dare to do 

 at all. My interest it is, and sole interest, to see the winds 

 gentle as usual in character, bringing beauty and fertility in 

 their train. My observations during thirty years would 

 lead me to expect a summer unexampled in its tempestuous 

 character. My especial object in writing to you is that you 

 would do all in your power, without injuring any, to draw 

 public attention to what I now am writing, in order that, if 

 I am wrong or mistaken in that which I believe to be a law, 

 I may learn it, and sit down humbled, but not less humble 

 than I am now ; and that if my views seem founded on 

 truth, my countrymen may, in future, derive from the know- 

 ledge whatever, advantage it pleases Providence may be 

 derived therefrom. I do not believe that the summer sea- 

 son preintimated in March really begins till May. April 

 has in it a good deal of the remains of the winter ; and I 

 have sometimes known the tendency of N.E. winds in May, 

 and even part of June, so strong as to overpower for a time 

 the premtimations of March ; but if they do, the preinti- 

 mations are afterwards carried out with a strength propor- 

 tioned to that delay. You may publish this in every way you 

 choose. I wish that such an opportunity of testing a re- 

 markable connection, if it exists, s) .uld not be lost to the 

 public. The weather I have allude 1. to extended over the 

 whole of the British islands, north a.d south, and therefore 

 the indications apply to the whole also. This is seldom the 

 case-I mean that England, Ireland, and Scotland shall have 

 m all parts the same equinoctial pli. no-ncn;*. I have offered 



to read an essay containing what I think on this subject of 

 a society at Oxford, if an opportunity offers. 



Thomas Du Boulay. 



London, April 5, 1860. 

 We feel much obliged for your letter of the 3rd inst. 

 Certainly, if your observations this season prove as correct 

 as they were two years ago about the drought, there would 

 seem to be something in them ; but we find the feeling gene- 

 rall3' prevailing already that this season is likely to be one 

 of a late character, and that the crops aie now, at all events, 

 notinastate to indicate abundance to the country: how- 

 ever, the result may he quite otherwise, though present ap- 

 pearances be against it. Providence has certainly allowed 

 man to get much additional knowledge in this country ; 

 but whether it be intended that he should have amongst 

 this knowledge information as to the future weather no one 

 can say. Would you like us to try to get your letter into 

 the Alark-lane Express and Agricultural journal ? 



Sandgate, April 6, 1860. 

 I should like you to try and get this corrsepondence in- 

 serted in the Mark-lane E.rpress, and I should like to hear 

 particularly any observations on this subject they may make. 

 1 know I may, and shall be, looked upon as a charlatah ; 

 but as what I have said and have to say is, and will be, 

 said with due modesty, I fear nobody. I have said that, 

 from oft-repeated observation, I am convinced that anything 

 very remarkable in the equinoctial week, as to the move- 

 ment and state of the air, adumbrates similar phenomena 

 on a larger scale, to be repeated from time to time during the 

 ensuing summer in the same tract of country, so as to give 

 that summer a decided character when it is over, and we 

 can make a judgment on it. You allude in your letter to 

 my anticipating a very dry time the summer before last. 

 Now, turn to last summer. I told you I was convinced it 

 would not be dry— that the drought was gone. The rain 

 that fell was above the average ; and the principal character- 

 istic of the summer, in the midland and southern counties, 

 was that it fell repeatedly in the shape of very heavy 

 thunder-showers, and knocked down an immensity of wheat 

 and other crops. You will find that here and there all 

 through the tract I have named, during the equinoctial 

 week preceding, a little hail or rain-shower was precipitated, 

 accompanied (aud it is very unusual at that time of the 

 year) by a clap of thunder, or perhaps two. I know this 

 was so, for I saw it mentioned in more than one paper. I 

 think there was a connection between that movement in the 

 air during the equinox which caused the one, and the 

 greater movement in the air, repeated .more than once, 

 which caused the other. However, we now come to a teat- 

 iug point : here is an equinox or equinoctial week, with the 

 heavens repeatedly in the wildest possible state, and the at- 

 mosphere repeatedly in the greatest commotion, rushing 

 from S. and S.W., and then a cessation for p time taking 

 place, with the wind W. or N.W. A considerable fall of 

 rain took place on the evening of the 23rd March, in the 

 midst of a tempest of wind from the S.,aud smaller quanti- 

 ties on one or two occasions before. ■! Ho not pretend to be a 

 prophet ; I believe the Almighty keeps in his own hands the 

 secrets of the winds, the origin of all the weathers, and that 

 the footstep of human scientific research is not approaching 

 thereto: but still, as when the western sunset is glowing 

 we are permitted to say that it will be a fine day on the 

 morrow, so perhaps the equinoctial week may give us a clue 

 to what may probably be coming. 



Thomas Du Boulay. 



CATTLE KILLED BY LICKING PAINT.— Last week 

 two short-horn bulls, about sixteen months old, in a lot of 

 twenty-five, the property of Mr. Clarke, upon New Moor 

 Farm, Southminster, were seized with frothing at the mouth, 

 affection of the braia, and other symptoms, from which one 

 died the next day, and the other was necessarily killed. Mr. 

 Howe, veterinary surgeon, oa hearing from the shepherd that 

 the animals had licked some lead-coloured paint from off a 

 part of the buildings, immediately pronounced it to have oc- 

 casioned the attack, and on a post mortem examination the 

 mortal effects of the poison were clearly developed, 



