1 849. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



11 



AGRICULTURAL METEOROLOGY 



Il.v im; discussed in former volumes o( this work 

 many subjects, particular!} the nature nvnl properties 

 of the organic and inorganic elements of plants, as 

 they exi-t in soil- and the atmosphere, we shall 

 advance a slop or two in the volume for 1849 ; and 

 endeavor to explain more fully than we have hitherto 

 done, several meteorological phenomena, which arc 

 of equal importance in the practice and the study of 

 Rural Economy. 



Rain and snow-water, dews, and the hygrometric 

 condition of the air, have an important and controlling 

 influence on the growth of all vegetables. The 

 clearing of forests, tillage, drainage and other opera- 

 tions of civilized man, affect the humidity, dryness 

 and temperature of well settled and cultivated regions 

 far more than is generally supposed. The most 

 careful measurements of the volume and velocity of 

 the Mississippi have resulted in establishing the 

 interesting fact, that it now annually discharges from 

 twenty to twenty-five per cent less water into the 

 Gulf than it did twenty-five years ago. 



At the meeting of scientific men in Philadelphia 

 last September, Professors Dickerson and Brow of 

 Mississippi read an elaborate report on the Sediment 

 and Water of the Mississippi : giving the results of 

 daily observations for eighteen years. 



The Mississippi Valley is found to contain a super- 

 ficial area of very little short of fourteen hundred 

 thousand square miles. The inquiry therefore here 

 suggests itself, what may be the relative difference 

 between the annual quantity of water falling into 

 this valley and the annual quantity discharged out of 

 ii by the rivfcr Mississippi ? It is found by examina- 

 tion of the meteorological register of the late Dr. H. 

 Too ley, of Natchez, that the mean annual quantity 

 of water which falls at Natchez is between fifty-five 

 and fifty-six inches ; but as such has been taken at 

 the southern extremity of the valley it may be 

 regarded as an over estimate for the whole area. 

 The mean quantity is therefore assumed to be fifty- 

 two inches, and then by calculation we will have 

 169,128,960,000,000 cubic feet as the quantity which 

 falls annually in the whole valley, which is within 

 a fraction of being twelve times the quantity which 

 is discharged by the river. 



Our own opinion is, that " fifty-two inches^' is too 

 high an estimate for the whole area drained by the 

 father of waters. It cannot, however, be less than 

 an average of forty-two inches ; so that nine-tenths 

 of all this water evaporates where it falls, in the 

 course of the year, and on the surface of the streams 

 before they reach the lower valley of the Mississippi. 

 Millions of acres of low lands, once long submerged 

 every season, are now dry and cultivated with but 

 comparatively slight assistance from art in the way 

 of embankments ; and these such as would not have 

 at all been available against the overflowing effects 

 of former floods and the length of time of their 

 continuance. The river seldom rises to the same 

 elevation as formerly, and when it does it is of much 

 shorter duration, and the waters are almost exclusively 

 confined to the channel of the river, in place of being 

 spread over almost all the bottom lands the whole 

 spring and early part of the summer. All these 

 advantages are progressively but rapidly extending 

 themselves, while the causes remain unsuspected or 

 overlooked, but none the less secure. As a further 

 evidence of the altered condition of this river, we 



may mention the circumstances, that, in former ti 

 1 1 i « - steamb inding or descending the river, 



were detained about hall their time by d 

 while now hardly* any such obstructions pervad . 

 that packets succeed in making their trips to an hour, 

 with no tears of such ;i retardation. Assuming that 

 tin' diminution of the waters will continue in some- 

 what the ratio they have recently done, the time 

 camiot be far distant when all apprehension from 

 inundation will in a g>eat measure pass away. We 

 further remark, as an evidence of change, that the 

 quantity of floating timber or drift wood pa 

 annually down the river has diminished in a far 

 greater ratio than that of the water, so that the 

 aggregate quantity cannot now be over fifty per cent, 

 of licit which formerly passed down. 



Let us suppose that Europe shall soon send a mil- 

 lion of hardy emigrants a year into this magnificent 

 country ; and that we shall so deeply and thoroughly 

 till the earth as to make it absorb and retain foi 

 nourishment of plants nineteen -twentieths of all 

 water, to escape into the atmosphere, whence it 

 descended, by solar evaporation through their leaves. 

 What wonderful changes must follow^, in the drying 

 and shrinkage of all creeks and rivers in the I 

 States ! In its feeble infancy, American Agriculture 

 thousands of miles above Louisiana and Mississippi, 

 is now conferring blessings of incalculable value on 

 those States. Nor will the great Lakes escape the 

 effects of increased evaporation from the felling of 

 forests, deep plowing, and other new influe 

 around all their borders and tributary streams. 



In connection with this subject we desire the 

 reader to bear in mind that, any broad ves lei sot out 

 to catch and hold all the water which falls in rain 

 and snow, and exposed to sun and wind, will be dry 

 from solar evaporation much of the fifty-two weeks 

 in a year. This we regard as an interesting meteo- 

 rological fact, x^nother fact of equal importance is, 

 that all or nearly all cultivated plants, like grasses, 

 grains, tubers and roots, contain while growing an 

 average of some seventy -five per cent of their 

 whole weight of water. To supply one's crops with 

 this abundant and indispensable element, and in a 

 way to avoid an excess at any time, is a matter that 

 should be studied with the utmost care and diligence. 

 A good husbandman should know how to husband 

 the fertilizing rains, snows and dews of heaven, as 

 they fall on his fields. The water that runs off from 

 plowed land on its surface, is apt to carry with it 

 more or less of the soil. That which sinks deep 

 into the earth and comes out in springs, takes with 

 it, not only salts of lime, potash, soda, magnesia and 

 iron held in solution, but carbonic, crenic, apocrenic, 

 nitric and other ac»ls, and ammonia. In other words, 

 rain-water in passing through soils dissolves out of 

 them both the organic and inorganic (so called) food 

 of plants. Krene is the Greek word for a spring ; 

 and Berzelius finding two organic acids in spring 

 water, gave them the names "crenic" and "apocre- 

 nic,' - as indicative of their origin. 



It is no bad test of the fertility of a soil, to fill a 

 clean barrel with it and see how much of bone earth 

 (phosphate of lime.) gypsum, common salt, opsom 

 salts, potash, and what we call dissolved mold, it 

 will yield to warm rain-water. These being the 

 constituent elements with which Nature builds up 

 all vegetables we deprecate their waste as a national 

 calamity. No matter how deeply they sink into the 

 earth, if they remain in one's field, and rise again to 



