32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



recent period. The thermometer was not invented till the 

 year 1590, thirty years before the settlement of New England, 

 and "was not brought to any degree of perfection till the year 

 1700; and we cannot rely upon the accuracy of observations 

 made by it previous to 1750. But few meteorological journals 

 were ever kept in this State till within the last century. In 

 order, therefore, to bring together all the information of value 

 and interest on the subject, many old manuscript diaries must 

 be found, and carefully read from beginning to end, and com- 

 pared with each other. The information obtained in this way, 

 though it cannot be regarded as scientifically exact, will yet be 

 found to be sufficiently accurate for the purposes of this inves- 

 tigation. It will also give us a clear idea of some of the 

 trials to which the early cultivators of the soil of New Eng- 

 land were subjected. 



The climate of New England is well known to be far drier 

 than that of England. The first settlers had some experience 

 of this, as early as 1623 when a drought commenced whose 

 severity was well nigh destructive to the hopes and plans of 

 the infant colony. The drought lasted from the third week in 

 May till the middle of July. Little rain fell for six weeks, and 

 the weather all the while was exceedingly hot. The corn, 

 planted, as usual, with fish in the hill, began to wither, and the 

 highlands all parched up.* After this it is probable that what 

 would now be called a severe drought did not occur for several 

 years. The dense forests that covered nearly the whole country, 

 the only openings being a few clearings made by the Indians for 

 cultivation, must naturally have afforded some protection against 

 the intense heat which we often feel. The hardest trials of 

 the early English settlers appeared in another shape, and it is 

 not till 1630 that we find it noticed that "the summer is a 

 good deal hotter than in Old England/' and from the fact that, 

 in 1634, it is recorded that "the summer is hotter than many 



* The fish used were alewives, ;it that time called " shads." 

 " According to the maimer of the Indians, we manured our ground with her- 

 , or rather shads, -which we have in gri al abundance and take with greal ease 

 at our doors." "You may Bee in one township a hundred acree together, set with 

 these flsh, every acre taking a thousand of them; and an acre thus dressed will 

 produce and yield so much corn as three acres without fish." — Chronicles of the 

 Pilgrims. 



