THE FARMKR'S MAGAZINE. 



have, in fact, been more than usually prevalent at 

 this season of the year. Every one knows their 

 chilUng influence. We not only feel it ourselves, 

 but we notice it in our shivering farmyard live 

 stock. The fog not only surrounds and carries off 

 the animal heat from us on all sides, but it is often 

 an impure moisture. We need not allude to the 

 smoke-surcharged fogs, of densely-populated places: 

 it is apparent enough to the very senses there ; 

 your eyes smart in a London fog (it is of a mellow 

 reddish-yellow colour) ; you taste it there. But 

 even in country places the water of fog is more 

 impure than that of rain. Professor Anderson, when 

 sketching (on a recent useful occasion) the progress 

 of scientific agriculture {Trans. High. Soc, 1858, 

 p. 397), alludes to the labours of a celebrated 

 French agricultural chemist to determine the com- 

 parative amount of some of the foreign substances 

 found in rain, fog, and dew waters. M. Boussin- 

 gault directed his attention to determining the 

 amount of ammonia and nitric acid not only in the 

 moisture of fogs and dews, but in rain-water under 

 different circumstances ; and he has shown that 

 the proportions vary within very wide limits at dif- 

 ferent times. As a general rule the water of dew, 

 and still more that of fogs, is richer both in am- 

 monia, and in nitric acid than rain-water, unless 

 we compare it with the first drops of rain falling 

 during a shower, and which for obvious reasons 

 must contain a large quantity. The abundance of 

 these substances in fog-water is remarkable. Thus 

 Boussingault found that a million parts of rain 

 falling in Alsace contain 0.6 of ammonia, and 0.2 

 of nitric acid ; but in the moisture of a particular 

 dense fog which occurred in Paris on the 23rd of 

 January, 1854, there were no less than 138 parts 

 per million of ammonia; and on another occasion 

 in the country, about a third of that quantity; and 

 on the 19th of December, 1857, a fog was examined 

 which contained 13 parts per million of nitric acid. 

 The following is a tabular statement of the quantity 

 of ammonia and nitric acid found in'meteoric water 

 under different circumstances. The numbers 

 express in grains the quantity per imperial gallon : 

 Ammonia. Nitric Acid. 

 S Paris .... 0.2100 0.0708 

 \ Liebfrauenberg . 0.0350 0.0140 

 S Maximum . . . 0.4340 0.0785 

 i Minimum . , . 0.0714 0.0030 

 < Paris .... 9.6000 0.7092 

 ( Liebfrauenberg . 0.1790 0.0718 



When we conclude that the protection of our 

 domestic animals from cold and wet (which moisture 

 renders our stock still colder) tends to our profit, 

 we have the testimony on our side of all the leading 

 practical farmers, and of men of science too, " I 

 have no faith in the idea which I have sometimes 



Rain 

 Dew 

 Fog 



heard expressed," observes Mr. Edward Bowly, of 

 Siddington, in his recent valuable prize essay on 

 the management of breeding cattle {Jour. Roy. Ag. 

 Soc, vol. xix., p. 147), " that ' roughing' calves 

 (which means exposing them to cold and hunger) 

 makes them hardy. On the contrary, it has the 

 effect of weakening their constitutions ; and this 

 system pursued towards the young stock for two 

 or three generations will ruin the best breed of 

 cattle in the country: the offspring after this time 

 will have lost all the quality, early maturity, and 

 propensity to fatten of their ancestors, and it will 

 require years of the greatest care to recover what 

 is thus lost. On the other hand, it is very injurious 

 to force young animals, although it may be neces- 

 sary in those individuals which are intended to 

 compete for prizes. The tendency of such a system 

 is to curtail their usefulness as breeding animals ; 

 for, though most of them so forced will breed, 

 there is of coui'se more risk in calving them, their 

 milking properties are greatly lessened, from those 

 vessels intended by nature for the supply of milk 

 being coated with fat, and they decay prematurely, 

 and have all the marks of age upon them at seven 

 or eight, whereas I have bred from cows not so 

 forced up to twenty-two years of age. Nor is there 

 any real reason for forcing show-animals ; for 

 judges can fully appreciate the merits of cattle 

 without their being so extremely fat as breeding- 

 stock are now exhibited at nearly all our shows." 

 And when speaking, in his prize essay, of the ma- 

 nagement of sheep {ibid, vol. viii., p. 30), Mr. R. 

 Smith, of Exmoor, after giving the result of a 

 variety of experiments upon their food, sums up 

 the results with the observation that it will be 

 found that inarmth is proved to be an important 

 feature in sheep husbandry, and is, in fact, a subject 

 affecting the rural economy of the whole nation. 

 Taking the average temperature of a sheep's body 

 at 100 degrees, and the average temperature of our 

 climate to be 60 degrees, in every respiration and 

 inspiration of air the animal loses by the exchanc/e 

 animal heat equal to 40 degrees, which if not sup- 

 plied by the elements of food or artificial warmth, 

 the animal would cease to exist. Thus, when 

 the temperature of the animal body is below the 

 standard oi heat, it requires a proportionate arti- 

 ficial warmth to economize the vegetable food." 



The dairy suffers too, by the exposure of the cow 

 to low temperature. It was in his elaborate paper 

 on the milk-producing gland {ibid., vol. xix., 

 p. 101) that Professor J, B. Simonds had occasion 

 to remark, when speaking of the effect of tempera- 

 ture, that the injurious result of the extreme heat 

 of summer, or of the cold of winter, over the ani- 

 mal functions, requires but little exemplification. 

 Cows exposed to either suffer in their lactation. 



