Daily Stl'dv ok tiik Hak'o.mkikk as an Aid to Fakmkhs. 27;' 



the Roman Empire of old, by the best in the laml, oi- he left as 1)3' the 

 Greek philosophers ami s(»l(lit'rs, to serfs atul shucs. Are the >i<(ricul- 

 turists of the future to oi-cupy their iiidepentient and honourable posi- 

 tion among their fellow- workers in othei- spheres, which thev have done 

 in the past, or are they to be hewers of wood and (irawers of water to 

 the rest of the cotnmunitv ?" 



IC— THE DAILY STUDY AND READING OF THE BARO- 

 METER A8 AN AID TO FARMING. 



By A. W. DoudLASS. 



It is with great dittidence that I venture to read my short paper 

 before an Association of this kind, as I cannot lay any claim to being 

 at all scientific ; but as I was pressed to write on Agriculture, and as 

 I have found the daily reading of the barometer of great assistance to 

 my farming, as well as being a most interesting hobby, I thought I 

 might ^•enture to write the few impressions I have formed, as they may 

 be of some small use to my fellow-farmers. 



I think I may safel}^ say that our climatic conditions are of so 

 ^aried a nature and subject to such rapid and sudden changes that any 

 aid that will allow the farmer more or less accurately to foretell what 

 the weather is likely to be twelve or twenty-four hours ahead is of very 

 great importance to the colonial agriculturist, more especially if he 

 happens to be an ostrich farmer How often do we not hear, or have 

 to admit ourselves, that if we had known that there was jjoina: to be a 

 certain sudden, perhaps disastrous, change in the weather, we would 

 have been able to take steps beforehand that would have saved, per- 

 haps, a serious loss. To the observer of the rise or fall of the baro- 

 meter, that sudden change must have warned the farmer hours, if not 

 days, before its arrival, and he has only himself to blame should he 

 then be caught. This is a country where a weatiier prophet's reputation 

 is almost daily at stake, a country of opposites, where signs, certain 

 enough indications in some seasons, break down hopelessly in others ; 

 almost every different person you meet has his or her own petty theory, 

 some of them most anuising and original, others very far-fetched and 

 intricate ; but I think the barometer holds its own ay the only true 

 indicator, and although you feel at times, especially in a long-pro- 

 tracted drought, that you would like to break the glass or smother the 

 instrument, you generally have to admit it was right. 



