42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



on account of the drought. This was in the neighborhood of 

 Boston, but the suffering extended as far as Maine. Smitli 

 says, August 11, "A melancholy dry time." September 1. — 

 "Very hot and dry." 16. — "An exceeding dry time." October 

 10. — "Every day is unusually warm, and constantly dry." 



The next three years were years of plenty and prosperity : 

 and it is a curious fact, that the springs of all of them were 

 late and backward, and the winters of 1776 and 1777 were of 

 marked severity, being among the coldest ever known. Smith 

 says, May 15, 1777, "The coldest weather and the most back- 

 ward spring that ever was." June 30. — " Cold, very cold ; 

 nothing like it through the whole spring; and yet every thing- 

 is nourishing except Indian corn." August 18. — "Never were 

 there such gardens, never such fields, never such pastures, 

 never such a year for every thing." September 2. — " The 

 earth is burdened with its fruits." 



A cold and backward spring is often followed by a fruitful 

 summer. This is a fact familiar to every observer. In con- 

 sequence of the hard frosts we frequently have in May, it often 

 happens that fruit trees which have blossomed early are in- 

 jured beyond recovery ; while, on the other hand, if they have 

 been retarded by a cold and wet spring, they come on very 

 rapidly, and are as far advanced, on the whole, by the 10th of 

 June, as they would have been if they had started earlier in 

 spring. Thus, in 1824, the cherry trees blossomed on the 1st 

 of May, and the peaches on the 4th ; but a few days afterwards 

 a cold snap came, which killed the shoots of all tender trees, 

 so that the early warm weather was in the end really injurious 

 to the groAvth of the year. 



In 1778 the winter was unusually severe, but the spring was 

 forward, and the weather fine, till July, when complaints began 

 to be heard. July 2. — "It is a very dry time." 18. — "The 

 drought awfully continues." 27. — "It is as grievous a drought 

 as ever was known." 31. — "People fear a famine. The In- 

 dian corn curls, and is like to come to nothing ; and there is no 

 prospect of any potatoes, nor turnips, nor any sauce at all." 

 August 6. — '• Plentiful rains." 



Droughts of a limited extent are noticed in the summer of 

 1781, 1782, and 1786, but in neither of these years was there 



