168 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



Improved Cattle. 



Derby, Ft. Oct. 6, 1841. 

 Hon. Isaac Hitt— Dear Sir:— I huve been 

 hesitating for some time whether to write and 

 intrude upou joiir retirement from the anhi- 

 OU8 duties of public hfe, or not ; but from tlie 

 knowledge I have of tlie less active but no less 

 useful pursuits of your retirement I am induced 

 to address you — especially as my subject is one 

 which seems to occupy your undivided attention. 

 1 do something at farming or rather pretend to— 

 but I have long been of the opinion that 1 did 

 nothing as it ought to be done especially as regards 

 the improvement of the breed of cattle, horses, 

 swine, &c. My attention is now ti.\ed upon the 

 improvement of my cattle. A year ago last 

 March I purchased of the Hon. Thos. A. Stiiyner, 

 P. M. General of Quebec, two bulls of the full 

 blood short horn Durham, from the best in En- 

 gland as both Mr. S. certifies, and the appearances 

 and stock of the animals clearly show. One of the 

 bulls is four years old last June, and the most 

 perfect made animal I ever saw, and such he is 

 pronounced to l)e by all good judges, who have 

 seen him, and by some who have travelled more 

 or less in all the stales. The bull is not extra 

 large, but perfect in all his parts. I have Ibrty of 

 of his calves which are such as to make a/ac *i«ii7c 

 of their sire, and t^o good a lot I presume cannot be 

 found in Vermont for the chance they have had. 

 This bull I wish now to sell, and three or four 

 noble cows with calf by him, and their present 

 calves with them if wanted; or if chosen, I 

 would sell the youngest (two years old last June) 

 game blood. I have thought perhaps these rattle 

 might be wanted in your vicinity from the inter- 

 est there taken in the business of agricultin-e 

 generally. If you will take the Uouhle to write 

 me on the subject, you will much oblige. 

 Yours respectfully, 



N. COLBY. 

 Instead of writing, we will publish Mr. Colby's 

 communication and answer him through the col- 

 umns of the Monthly Visitor. The editor truly 

 regrets that he is not himself better acquainted, 

 from personal observation, with the relative mer- 

 its of the different breeds of cattle. And al- 

 though the farmers of central New Hampshire 

 present as fine native cattle as can be found in 

 old Caledonia or any other county of Vermont, 

 we are sorry to say that in relation to improved 

 breeds of foreign cattle the State of New Hamp- 

 shire is not yet so (iir advanced as some of her 

 sister States. On this subject our farmers, al- 

 though desirous of improvement, have not as yet 

 been in the way of conveniently obtaining them 

 by direct importation ; and they have not felt 

 themselves able to pay the very high prices that 

 have been paitl by amateur farmers in other 

 States. We are not, however, by any means less 

 anxious to improve the breeds of our cattle. The 

 United Societies at Canterbury and Enfield, N. 

 H. have gone fiirther in encountering the e.xpense 

 of introducing improved breeds of cattle than 

 any others in New Hampshire ; and both in their 

 cattle and swine it is believed they have or will 

 be well remunerated for their effoi'ts. During 

 the last summer we met, while passing the street 

 through this town, one of the Weare farmers 

 with a fine heifer calf standing up before him in 

 his dearborn wagon ; on enquiry we found this 

 calf to be six weeks old from the full blood Dur- 

 ham heifer owned by the First Family at Can- 

 terbury: — for this calf he paid them twenty-five 

 dollars, at which price the Shakers will make their 

 accustomed profit after paying lor the expense of 

 bringing the breed from Kentucky. 



While on our very gratifying visit onb year 

 ago to Caledonia county, Vermont, we ascer- 

 tained the fact that the fine cattle which swarm 

 on the fertile fields and hills of that country had 

 been considerably improved by the introduction 

 of the improved breeds through the province ol 

 Lower Canada. There was a very beautifid team 

 of oxen, from two years old and upward, exhib- 

 ited by a farmer of Waterford, of the Hereford 

 breed— they were of a brown red or bay color,witli 

 hair of silken soflness and fineness,and great beau 

 ty and uniformity in the nostrils, face, brad and 

 horns. In the town of Barnet our old friend Bar- 

 tholomew Soinmers had introduced a fine Dm-- 

 ham bull Irom Canada, the offspring of which had 

 been spread through that vicinity and over the 

 Connecticut river into Grafton couuty.New Hamp- 



shire. Other cattle of the English Durham, Dev- 

 onshire and Scotch Ayrshire breeds had come 

 in, as was evident in viewing the.fine flocks up- 

 on the hills of Barnet, Peacham, Danville, St. 

 Johnsliury and Lyndon. 



Mr. Colby resides noith of these towns on the 

 extreme border of the States, next to " the Town- 

 ships" of Lower Canada. He has taken the 

 right course, both for the improvement of the 

 flocks of cattle in the northerly sections of New 

 Hampshire and Vermont, and for the advantage 

 of his own individual interest. We trust the 

 farmers at the north with grazing lands will not 

 lose so good an opportunity as his offer presents 

 to procure some of the fine anitnals which he 



Remarks on the Weather and Seasons. 



Meredith, jV. H. Oct. WO, 1841. 



Ho.N. Isaac Hill: Dear Sir: — I forward these 

 remarks (or insertion in your excellent Agricul- 

 tural Journal, [The Farmer's Monthly Visi- 

 tor,] if you think they may interest or omuse 

 any of its intelligent readers. 



There is always something in the operations 

 of Nature, which inspires in the observer rever- 

 ential and exalted ideas of the Creator and Gov- 

 ernor of the Universe : — whether the scenes or 

 objects are ;)<acirf arid delightful, — as the tranquil 

 and smooth surface of the waters of the ocean, 

 glittering among the rocks and reefs in a calm 

 sun-shiny morning ; or iublime and terrible, — as 

 the horrific dashing of the towering waves and 

 ships against the same objects of terror to marin- 

 ers, in a raging and furious storm, still there are 

 circumstances connected with them which some 

 way or another are always interesting. It is an 

 object of interest to see a ship struggling with 

 the waves in a boisterous and tempestuous sea ; 

 not that we are delighted to behold our fellow- 

 beings in danger and distress, but because we 

 ourselves are safe. 



Natural events which are extraordinary of their 

 kind, are generally of short duration, though 

 sometimes of long continuance. A violent earth- 

 quake, thunder-storm, or hurricane, though 

 dreadful tor a time, seldom lasts long ; not so in 

 regard to the seasons. Once in a while, but for- 

 tunate for the human race, not very often, we 

 witness an extraordinary cold or wet or dry sea- 

 son, and we ought to be thankfid to the Great 

 Author of Nature, that unfavorable seasons hap- 

 pen no oftener than they do, especially in this 

 country. According to a historical and meteoro- 

 logical journal, there was a great dearth in Eng- 

 land and France, in the vear 1194; another in 

 122-a, 1315, 1310, 1348, 1353. and 1.385; anoth- 

 er in 1438, when bread, in many jilaces, was 

 made of fern roots and ivy berries. £ 2,000,000 

 sterling was paid lor corn imported into England, 

 in a dearth in 1565, £ 1,200,000 in 1748. In 

 A. D. 918 there was a continual rain in Scotland, 

 for five months ; a violent one in London, in 12,'33, 

 and another in i;J35, so heavy that the corn crop 

 was spoiled. 



A very hot and dry, or a very wet, season, is 

 unfriendly to farmers, but vegetation suffers most 

 when great heat and drought prevail at the same 

 time ; nor is a very cold and wet season, though 

 there may be no hard frost in May, June, or Au- 

 gust, much more favorable to agricultural 

 productions, grass and potatoes excepted. And 

 even the moisture-loving potatoe needed an 

 umbrella in some parts of New England, in 183t), 

 when July and August were such wet months 

 that you could scarcely put your foot on the 

 ground without stepping in water. 



Why the seasons should be so variable as they 

 are, is not so ea.«y to account for as the eftects 

 of many other causes. The state of the weather 

 as affected by the Moon and Planets can be pre- 

 dicted with considerable accuracy, when no imii- 

 sual causes interpose ; but when the elements of 

 the atmosphere are deranged, or in what may be 

 termed a morbid state, as they are in an extreme 

 drought, " all signs fail." Some have remarked 

 that when the showers g'o roi/Tw/, as they call it, 

 in the spring, they generally do so all summer, 

 and indeed it is curious to observe how common 

 it is for one shower to follow the track of another; 

 but w hy is this the case ? What are the princi- 

 (lal causes of a dry sunmier, and why do two or 

 three dry seasons generally follow each other in 

 succession ? Before proceeding to answer these 

 questions, we will first consider the causes which 



jiroduce rain any where. In the first place, the 

 water and moisture ascend from the terraqueous 

 globe into the atmosphere, being generally raised 

 or drawn up in an invisible form, by the action of 

 the Sun's heat, and in this state it is called vapour. 

 When the vapours collect so as to become vis- 

 ible near the land or water, they produce fog, 

 mist or steam. When collections of vapours ap- 

 pear high in the air, as the common expressiuu 

 is, they are called clouds ; these rise in the atmos- 

 phere until they arrive at air of the same weight 

 as themselves, bulk for bulk, where they float, 

 or remain stationary, some higher and some low- 

 er, according to tlieh- density. The principal 

 agents in forming vapours into clouds, are at- 

 traction and cold. Clouds, which appear to rest 

 on mountains, are sometimes attracted by the 

 mountains, or blown there by ,the wind, but of- 

 tener formed there by the vapours being con- 

 densed by the cold of the higher region. When 

 the clouds collect so as to overspread the hori- 

 zon, and their humid particles are sufficiently 

 condensed by mutual attraction, or by the agen- 

 cy of cold, they fiill to the earth in the form of 

 rain, hail, or snow. When a cloud rises sudden- 

 ly, and is highly charged with aqueous matter, it 

 produces a shower or squall, in which electricity 

 is an active agent, as is shown by large drops of 

 rain immediately falling, most generally, after a 

 cla|> of thunder, in a shower. 



Mountains attract the clouds more than plains 

 and valleys do, and like substances have a grea- 

 ter affinity for one another than those which are 

 of different natures, and if this were the whole 

 cause of its raining in one place and not in an- 

 other, all the rain would fitll on mountains, oceans, 

 seas, lakes, and low and wet countries, which is 

 not the case. It appears from observation, that 

 there is between the same parts of the earth and 

 the clouds, sometimes an attractive, and some- 

 times a repulsive relation; when the latter pre- 

 vails we have no showers nor storms, though the 

 wind blows long from the sea, and the clouds 

 hovering on the hills and mountains, and over- 

 spreading the heavens, may indicate "abundance 

 of rain." The i)rincipal agents in atmospheric 

 repulsion are heat and electricity. When the 

 clouds, or the clouds and earth, are eipially elec- 

 trified, they repel each other, but when one is 

 plus, and the other is mintis, they attract one an- 

 other. It is also known to every observer, that 

 heat causes water to ascend in steam, and pre- 

 vents the vapour from collecting into drops: 

 hence, in a dry season, though the weather may 

 be very hot, and consequently the evaporation 

 from the land and water be very copious, and 

 the temperature of the atmosphere may be so 

 low as .to form the vapour into clouds, yet if the 

 heat in the region of the clouds is so considerable 

 as to prevent the aqueous partjcles from uniting 

 no rain will fiill. In dry summers, though very 

 hot, there is seldom much thunder, owing to the 

 absence of electricity in the atmosphere, which 

 is perhaps also the principal cause of a drought. 



In regard to showers frequently passing over 

 the earth in the same direction, during a summer 

 sea.son, it may be remarked that as mouiitains 

 attract the clouds, the showers in New England 

 would naturally pass round to the north, where 

 the mountains are most numerous and lofty ; but 

 this is not always the case, and showers would 

 pass round to the south oftener than they do, if as 

 many showers happened in our clitrmte, when 

 the wind was northerly, as when it was southerly. 

 The first shower in a season may pass over in a 

 certain direction, as it were acciileiTtally, by the 

 clouds being driven by the wind, but whatever 

 the cause may be which directs the first shower, 

 succeeding showers will naturally follow the 

 .same course, according to the law of chemical 

 attraction until some change in the atmosphere 

 should give them a new direction, which would 

 happen sooner or later, according to local circum- 

 stances or causes, such as the nature of the soil, 

 situation of places, exposure to winds, proximity 

 to seas and lakes, distance from the equator, &c. 

 After one extreme in the weather, its .opposite 

 may be expected with as nmch cerUiinty, as that 

 day will succeed night; the reason is as obvious 

 as is that why a pendulum vibrates to the right, 

 presently after it has vibrated to the left. 



History and chronology inform us that dm-ing 

 17.56 years from the creation of the world, it 

 prolmbly never rained in Asia in the manner that 

 it commonly does, as no rainbow appeared be- 



