reduction is reported from every cotton-growing State, the 

 general result indicating a reduction of 6.6 per cent from the 

 acreage of last year. 



The average condition of meadows is 92.9, against 93.4 

 on May 1 of last year. The averages of the fourteen prin- 

 cipal hay-producing States range from 102 for Nebraska 

 down to 58 for California. 



The average condition of spring pasture is 91.2, against 

 93.4 at the corresponding date in 1897. Exceptionally high 

 averages prevail throughout New England. In California 

 the pastures have suffered severely from protracted drought, 

 the present condition being 46. 



The proportion of spring ploughing usually done by May 

 1 is 75.8 per cent of the whole amount. The proportion 

 done this year is 72.4, against 61.9 last year. Among States 

 in which ploughing is unusually advanced are New York, 

 Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Min- 

 nesota and North Dakota. 



In Massachusetts the average condition of meadow lands 

 May 1 was 98 ; the average condition of spring pasture, 98 ; 

 the proportion of spring ploughing already done, 53 ; and 

 the proportion usually done, 50. 



Weather Summary, January to April, 1898. 



[Furnished by the Weather Bureav, Boston.] 



January was about normal in temperature and considerably 

 above the average in precipitation. The principal meteoro- 

 logical feature of the month was the unusually severe storm 

 of January 31 to February 1. This storm is generally con- 

 sidered to have been more severe than the memorable 

 "blizzard" of March, 1888, and in some places no storm 

 since January, 1867, has equalled it in violence. Heavy 

 snow fell all night of the 31st to 1st, and the wind blew a 

 gale from the north-east. On the morning of February 1 

 Massachusetts, with the rest of New England, was completely 

 snowbound; railroad traffic was completely at a standstill 

 for nearly twenty-four hours, and along our coast from Cape 

 Ann to Cape Cod many vessels were wrecked, nearly two 

 score of mariners losing their lives ; the money loss has not 



