INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER. 147 



New England. The same excessive drought has extended to 

 a greater or less extent in the Middle States. Maryland, 

 Virginia, and parts of North Carolina have been blessed with 

 abundant rains. South of that, Georgia, South Carolina, 

 Alabama, Florida, have suffered from drought. Now, remem- 

 bering this fact, with a few remarks that this- suggests to my 

 mind, I will come to the results of my experiments. 



It occurs to my mind, because it has been mentioned to me 

 since I came to Worcester, to say something about the effect 

 of the weather on the use of chemicals as fertilizers. I have 

 been told here in Worcester that the professor of agriculture 

 made a statement at Haverhill, and made it in different quar- 

 ters a year ago, that if farmers would use chemicals, they 

 would be entirely independent of the weather. I do not 

 believe that the professor of agriculture ever made that state- 

 ment, or ever made one that any man could honestly construe 

 into that, because, in the first place, the professor of agricult- 

 ure, although not wise, is not so much of a fool. Any man's 

 common-sense, as well as his intelligence, teaches him that 

 the weather has much to do with the perfection of crops, 

 especially the rainfall and the heat. Now, the professor of 

 agriculture has stated, and he boldly repeats it here to-day, 

 and proposes to stand by it, that when he uses chemicals as 

 manures, the farmer is more independent of the changes and 

 vicissitudes of the weather than when he uses raw, coarse, 

 undecomposed, unfermented mauures ; and that in a season 

 when there is only an ordinary variation from the average 

 seasons, but a variation which would affect crops on coarse, 

 raw, unprepared mauures, the crops on chemicals, which are 

 absolutely plant-food, which are ready to feed the plant, and 

 therefore require no decomposition and little water, will not 

 be affected by such seasons. But where we have a scorching, 

 burning drought, or where we have a midsummer frost, no 

 man ever did, and no man ever will, find fertilizers that will 

 screen him from damage and loss from such seasons and such 

 weather. That is what the professor of agriculture believes, 

 in relation to chemicals as plant-food. 



Now, I have made the statement, that the season of 1876, 

 in its effect upon crops, has been a remarkable one. I want 

 to be sure that I do not make any mistake in this matter, and 



