THE FARMER AT HOME. 93 



in the tipper part of the atmosphere. The clouds, therefore, are 

 generally higher in summe: than in winter ; in the former season they 

 are from one mile to three miles high, and in the latter from a quarter 

 of a mile to a mile. 



When the clouds are much increased by a continual addition of 

 vapors, and their particles are driven close together by the force of 

 the winds, they will run into drops heavy enough to fall down in rain. 

 If the clouds are frozen before their particles are gathered into drops, 

 small pieces of them being condensed, and made heavier by the cold, 

 they fall down in flakes of snow. If the particles are formed into 

 drops before they are frozen, they become hailstones. When the air 

 is replete with vapors, and a cold breeze springs up which checks 

 the solution of them in the air, clouds are formed in the lower parts 

 of the atmosphere, and these compose a mist or fog ; this usually 

 happens in a cold morning ; but the mist is dispersed when the sun 

 has warmed the air, and made it capable of dissolving the watery 

 particles of which the mist is composed. 



Southerly winds generally bring rain, because, being commonly 

 warm, and replete with aqueous vapors, they are cooled by passing 

 into a colder climate ; and therefore part with some of them, and 

 suffer them to precipitate in rain ; northerly winds, on the contrary, 

 being cold, and acquiring heat by coming into a warm climate, take 

 up or dissolve more vapor than they before contained ; and therefore 

 are dry and parching, and usually attended with fair weather. 



Every farmer whose business is in the open air, is more or less a 

 meteorologist ; and none find an acquaintance with the clouds, and 

 the power of judging of the future by their present appearances, of 

 more essential service than the farmer. In assisting to form a correct 

 decision with regard to the weather, a barometer is of great help ; but 

 where such an instrument is not at hand, the clouds, by their different 

 structure, height, and density, will enable the scientific or even the 

 ordinary observer, to calculate quite accurately the results of their 

 appearance. It is proverbial how accurately mariners may judge of 

 approaching changes in the weather, farmers may acquire much 

 of a similar accuracy. 



CLOVE. The clove is the unexpanded flower-bud of an East 

 Indian tree, somewhat resembling the laurel in its height, and in the 

 shape of its leaves. In the Molucca islands, where the raising of dif- 

 ferent spices was formerly carried on by the Dutch colonists to great 

 extent, the culture of the clove-tree was a very important pursuit. It 

 has even been asserted, that, in order to secure a lucrative branch of 

 commerce in this article to themselves, they destroyed all the trees 

 growing in other islands, and confined the propagation of them to that 

 of Ternate. But it appears that, in 1770 and 1772, both clove and 

 nutmeg- trees were transplanted from the Moluccas into the islands of 

 France and Bourbon, and subsequently into some of the colonies of 



