30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the past than prophets of the future. As meteorological ob- 

 servations are continued, however, from year to year, with the 

 aid of the vast facilities which science has given us, data will 

 probably be obtained, from which we may predict, with some 

 degree of certainty, the character of the coming season. 



The climate of New England has never been sufficiently 

 studied by agriculturists. The almanac is the only work on 

 meteorology found on the shelf of the farmer. In this he now 

 and then notes down the state of the weather, but he rarely 

 attempts to keep accurate records of it from year to year, 

 from which some reliable general principles might be deduced. 

 So little attention has been paid to the difference between our 

 climate and that of England, whence most of our agricultural 

 precepts have been derived, that much unjust prejudice has at 

 times prevailed against scientific agriculture, or what has been 

 termed " book farming," when, in fact, an unexpected result 

 has frequently been owing to this very difference. I shall take 

 occasion to allude to this subject hereafter. For the present, 

 I propose to state some of the characteristics of our own cli- 

 mate, and to give the results of some investigations to which I 

 was led by the long-protracted and disastrous drought of the 

 past year. 



Scarcely had the summer opened upon us when complaints 

 began to be heard in all parts of the country of the terrible 

 effects of a drought almost without a parallel in the annals of 

 agriculture. 



To one wholly unacquainted with our climate, with its ex- 

 treme alternations of heat and cold, it would be difficult to 

 describe the effects of our droughts, or to give an idea of the 

 gloom which they cast over the face of nature. The heavens 

 over our heads are literally as brass. A look of despair takes 

 l he place of the green, smiling aspect of spring. The pastures 

 arc dried up, the leaves are scorched, and the flowers wither; 

 even the golden corn, the pride of New England, which so 

 generally luxuriates in the fierceness of our summer sun, curls 

 and sometimes withers beyond recover)'. Meantime, the power 

 of the cloudless sun is intense. The panting animals in our fields 

 vainly seek some shelter against the intolerable heat; the 

 springs die ; the lakes and ponds sink in their beds, or becomo 



