38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



summer was followed by so hard a winter in 1750 that it was 

 difficult to keep cattle alive, and many were left to take care 

 of themselves by browsing in the woods. Hay was imported 

 from England. 



Dry weather began again in July, 1752, and seems to have 

 been severe and long continued; for Smith says, September 31, 

 " Dry, dry, dry ; melancholy drought.'' October 30. — li We won- 

 derfully fail in our sauce, by reason of the drought." And Mr. 

 Lane's diary, kept in New Hampshire, says, August 26, "A 

 severe frost, which killed the corn and almost every green 

 thing; there was scarcely any sound corn raised, and people 

 were put to great difficulty for seed corn in the spring; and 

 the spring following there was such a scarcity of provisions, 

 both corn and meat, that it would make the hardest heart ache 

 to hear the complaints of multitudes of people ready to perish 

 for want of food, and begging for a handful of corn." In the 

 summer it was imported and sold at forty-five shillings a bushel. 



In 1754, Smith says, July 1, " I have no grass growing on 

 my mowing ground, and there is no feed on the Neck ; the rea- 

 sons are, the open winter, three weeks' early drought, and the 

 grasshoppers." 22. — "There is a melancholy drought." October 

 24. — "A great storm; the earth is filled with water." This was 

 one century ago. 



Three years after, in 1757, he says, June 1, "Avery dry 

 time ; melancholy tidings of the drought from Boston and 

 vicinity." 19. — ''The drought awfully increases; the grain 

 and grass are much cut short." 



The next three years were wet and cold, but fruitful. The 

 spring of 1758 was so backward that people did not generally 

 begin to plant till the end of May, and the corn was spoiled by 

 the dampness. " The corn being green, stunk in our chambers. 

 Corn sold at £4 per bushel." And in 1760 it was said, on 

 June 26, '■ There have been but twenty-four hours of hot weather 

 this year." And yet all these years are spoken of as remark- 

 ably fruitful. 



It is a fact familiar to every farmer, that a low temperature, 

 evenly distributed over the spring and summer months, greatly 

 favors the production of grasses, because most plants neither 

 flower nor leaf out very abundantly without a large quantity 



