342 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



''August 4th. — Eleven-sixteenths more niin; 

 mercury 70 deg. at sunrise; a liot night for this 

 region. Cutting ripe oats; grasshoppers destroyed 

 ©ne-fburth. 



"August 5th. — Mercury 45 to 75 deg. Great 

 grass weatlier, though not the host for butter. 

 One cow gives 240 quarts of milk weekly. We 

 heat the milk in pans over boiling water. Young 

 locusts and butternuts still denuded, without signs 

 of life since the June frosts. 



"August 10th. — Corn leaves rolling. Mercury 

 90 deg. at 2 P. M. An inch of rain next day to 

 feed the grass. 



" August 12th. — Two inches of rain, a subaqueous 

 point in our Siberian summer, as rain has now fallen 

 IVi lbs. to the square yard in eighteen hours. 

 Grasshoppers doing their perfect work ; every pea 

 leaf in the field is devoured; outside rows of corn 

 ditto; twenty on one cabbage in the garden; tur- 

 nips denuded. 



"August 13th. — Mercury at GO deg.; cloudy, 

 damp; tirst rate premium butter weather. Another 

 cow gives 200 quarts of milk a week. 



"August 15th. — Mercury 56 to 90 deg. No mus- 

 quitoes this summer. First cucumbers; potatoes 

 egg size; beets and squashes large; garden sweet 

 corn all gone to the hoppers, who kill the ear by 

 eating the silk. 



" August 16th. — Mercury CO to 90 deg. One and 

 one-eighth inches rain fell. Picked first King 

 Philip corn to boil, planted 20th June — fifty-eight 

 days from the seed. Seneca can't beat this. Millet 

 and corn fodder, planted after the frost, rampant. 

 From the 8th of June to the 16th of August we 

 have had 407 lbs. of rain to the square yard, with 

 a few very hot days. Four rods of turnips next 

 the cow-yard, that have escaped the hoppers, yield 

 very large — fifty bushels at least. Farmers who 

 are short of winter fodder have begun butchering, 

 and good pieces of beef may now be had at four 

 cents a pound ; shanks four cents each. 



"August 19th. — Mercury 58 to 67 deg. An inch 

 of rain fell last night. When the mercury falls 

 below 60, grasshoppers hybernate, and the dairy 

 maid rejoices in the quality and quantity of her 

 butter; but corn is now in abeyance. A half a 

 mile of black-birds to-day devoured myriads of 

 hoppers, apparently without lessening their num- 

 bers; even our porcines have acquired the art of 

 catching grasshoppers. 



" August 20th. — Mercury 40 to 74 deg. — too cool 

 nights for corn ; hoppers paralized; large ones dis- 

 appeared, and clouds of black-birds from the swamps 

 exterminate the small ones. Grass seems to have 

 grown half the last few days, as the ground has 

 been sufiicieutly moistened. Potatoes good. 



"August 21st. — Mercury 44 to 74 deg. First 

 succulent feast to-day, as beans now shell. To- 

 matoes egg size. I find that there has been frost 

 two mornings this month, both in this county and 

 Cattaraugus, probably wlien the mercury was 40 

 here at sunrise. Thus we have had frost every 

 month this year. 



"August 24th. — Rain nine-sixteenths of an inch ; 

 mercury 57 to 73 deg. Twenty-five years ago I 

 sometimes got a peck of potatoes from one liill, 

 now I rarely get a gallon, from the best of soil, 

 sometimes not half that. There is less vegetable 



mould in the soil now; but that does not account 

 for all the discrepance. 



"August 26th. — Mercury 57 to 74 deg. A ped- 

 dler with beef steak at five cents every other day. 

 Rain one-sixteenth of an inch — very light for this 

 region; but long hot drying days are not. 



"August 27tli.— Mercury 50 to 66 deg. Rain 

 last night five-eighths of an inch. 



"August 28th.— Mercury 44 to 6-3 deg. On tlic/ 

 3d of June the mercury here did not rise above 34 

 all day; at dark it was 30; next morning, 22. 



"August 29th.— Mercury 36 to 62 deg. It was 

 two degrees colder at sunrise than at day-break, 

 and a sliirt was frozen on the grass. 



•'August Slst. — Mercury 47 to 70 deg. Five- 

 sixteenths of an inch rain. Grasshoppers decreas- 

 ing fast. 



"September 1st. — Mercury 55 deg. Spring cnr- 

 riages in procession, bound to a pic-nic. Forty 

 years ago there were no spring carriages here ; so 

 much for premium butter. I forgot to say that the 

 frost froze and destroyed our garden peas in the 

 incipient pod. 



" September 2d. — Mercury 47 to 69 deg. Aurora 

 as bricht as a full moon at its zenith at 3 A. M. ; 

 east cloudy ; west generally clear. Three-sixteenths 

 of an inch rain last evening; a cold northern v/ind 

 at 6 A. M. 



"September 3d. — Mercury 47 to tO deg. The 

 great aurora of the 2Sth ult. was scarcely less re- 

 markable than that of yesterday morning. I could 

 read by either. 



"September 4th. — Mercury 47 to 60 deg. Rain 

 last evening seven-sixteenths of an inch. 



"September 6th. — Mercury 38 to 60 deg. A 

 dense fog kept off frost. No corn glazed yet. 



" September 7th. — Mercury 40 to 60 deg. — warm- 

 est at sunset in sixteen days. 



" September 8tb. — Mercury 37 to 69 deg. 



"September 9th. — Mercury 40 to 75 deg. Corn 

 glazes fast. A week dusty roads. 



"September 10th. — Mercury GO to 70 deg. Some 

 corn will now do for seed. We may have fifteen 

 bushels for Johnycake meal, and for fatting our 

 pork. 



"September 11th. — Mercury 65 to 69 deg. Rain 

 yesterday nine-sixteenths, and five-eighths of an 

 inch to-day. 



"September 12th. — Merpury 45 to 70 deg. 



"Septenrber 13th. — Mercury 58 to 68 deg. 



"September 14th. — Mercury 47 deg. all day. 



" September 15th. — Mercury 34 to 57 deg. Vines 

 a little cut by frost last night." 



It may be proper here to say that the frost of 

 the 15th September, so light in high Chautauque, 

 was as severe in this region of Seneca county as 

 the June frosts, and much corn fodder was injured 

 by it. Corn ripe generally. 



Methinks the above diary goes far to show why 

 they make so much good hard butter in Ciiau- 

 tau(}ue. Every farmer there this season sells his 

 butter at 22c at home on contract for the New 

 York market; while here, on the line of the Cen- 

 tral railroad, butter has sold througli the season at 

 from 14 to 16c. The New Yt)rk dealers will not 

 coiitract for it, and only buy it when sent there at 

 about grease jjrices. Truly, Chautauiiuo can afford 

 to be denuded by frost once in a life-time. 



WuUrloo, J^. r., October ~ith, 1859. 



