126 SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



4 



stood, that there is little certainty in all the theories and 

 weather tables which have been formed. Although many of 

 the meteorological phenomena are somewhat well understood 

 in their individual nature, still, when they are combined, their 

 operation is exceedingly complex, and the number of their 

 changes almost infinite. 



Records of past changes of weather have long been kept, 

 but it has been found by observation and comparison of the 

 results of different seasons and years, that few data are 

 obtained, on which to ground any prognostications of the 

 future. Some individuals have, by long and close observation, 

 attained some apparent accuracy of judgment in relation to the 

 phases of the weather; but their conclusions were not of a 

 nature to be systemized and transmitted to posterity ; so that, 

 if any real attainment has been made in this way, it has 

 always been lost with the observer. 



"The registers which are kept in different observatories, 

 prove, contrary to popular belief that the changes of weather 

 are in no way whatever dependent on the phases of the moon." 

 Although the ever varying and endless changes of weather 

 are all the necessary results of fixed laws, yet it is doubtful 

 whether these laws will ever be sufficiently understood to 

 enable us to reduce our knowledge respecting them to demon- 

 strative ccertainty. 



CLIMATE. 



Climate, in its most extended signification, embraces all the 

 modifications of atmospheric temperature and conditions, and 

 the principal causes on which they are dependent: besides 

 temperature, it includes humidity, dryness, winds, barometrical 

 conditions, purity of air, &c. The principal causes which tend 

 to modify climate are, latitude, altitude, direction in which the 

 sun' sprays fall upon the earth, configuration and aspect of the 

 land, its proximity and relation to the sea, direction of the 

 wind, density of the atmosphere, number of rays of the sun 



