SI 



In order that luch a journal should answer the purposes of 

 agricultural experiment, it should embrace a great variety of 

 particulars. It should give a daily account of the temperature 

 of the air, according to the thermometer; and of its weight, ac- 

 cording to the barometer. It should notice the direction, force, 

 and changes of the wind ; the state of the sky, whether clear or 

 cloudy ; the quantity of rain, hail, sleet and snow in each month ; 

 the number and relative severity of storms of lightning, and the 

 moisture of the atmosphere, as measured by appropriate instru- 

 ments. That these circumstances have very great influence up- 

 on the growth of plants, the following paragraph from the wri- 

 tings of an able observer will show. '^ In the same tree he ob- 

 served that in a cold cloudy morning, when no sap ascended, a 

 sudden change was produced by a gleam of sunshine of half an 

 hour; and a vigorous motion of the fluid. The alteration of the 

 wind from south to north, immediately checked the effect. On 

 the coming on of a cold afternoon, after a hot day, the sap that had 

 been rising, began to fall. A warm shower and a sleet storm 

 produced opposite effects." 



Do these suggestions seem to any who hear me, to partake 

 too much of the nature of mere philosophical speculation, and to 

 be too retined, for the adoption of the practical farmer, even if 

 he be an intelligent one ? Far belt from me, gentlemen, to pro- 

 pose as your guides, mere philosophical conjecture, or abstract 

 reasoning. So far as these suggestions are not based upon expe- 

 rience, let them be disregarded. But I would have this Society 



Almanacs, by knowing the position of the heavenly bodies, are able to pre- 

 dict the state of the weather as easily as the time of an eclipse. And hence 

 it is, that predictions ofthe weather are inserted and tolerated in almost eve- 

 ry Almanac. But if the confessions of one, who formerly constructed an 

 almanac for several years, may be believed, I assert that there is not, in the 

 whole circle of science, a single principle that will enable a man to foretell, 

 for a single week, the state ofthe weather. Some may recollect that the 

 predictionsof the weather in the " Country Almanac" were thought, by 

 many, to be remarkably accurate : yet those predictions were mere conjec- 

 ture — for one year they were copied from an old almanac that happened to 

 be at hand. And I assert, without fear of contradiction, that no other alma- 

 nac maker has any thing belter than conjecture to guide him in this matter. 

 Is it not then morally wrong, to continue to insert these predictions in an al- 

 manac, without stating expressly that they are conjectural ? The Christian 

 Almanac is, I bf^lieve, the only one in the country that hns yet had the 

 courage to make this declaration, and to free its diary from iliis imposition. 



