RAIN— EVAPORATION AND FILTRATION. 



The excessive droughts that have been experienced in our 

 latitude for the past five years, defeating tlie exertions of cul- 

 tivators, and disappointing them in the produce of their crops, 

 have induced them to direct their attention to the means by 

 which they may better guard themselves against the disas- 

 trous effects resulting from the occurrence of such dry sea- 

 sons. Some energetic amateurs we can call to mind, who 

 have already anticipated this, and through the assistance of 

 hydraulic rams, artesian wells, and other appliances, have at 

 their command the means of materially lessening the evils 

 that result from severe or protracted droughts. They have 

 acted wisely, and their foresight will undoubtedly be accom- 

 panied with rich results. But all are not so advantageously 

 located as to avail themselves of such artificial aids for irriga- 

 tion or moisture. And where the soil is not naturally such 

 as will retain moisture, all the resources that art can supply, 

 such as trenching, subsoiling, mulchiiig, (fcc, must be resort- 

 ed to, in order to avert the destruction which must naturally 

 follow the continuance of our summer droughts. 



That these droughts are likely to occur, not successive- 

 ly, perhaps, but periodically, and with more or less severity, 

 appears almost certain, if we may judge from the experience 

 of the past. The attention which has recently been given 

 to the fall and distribution of rain, and the careful observa- 

 tions of scientific men in all sections of the country, espec- 

 ially appointed by government for that purpose, show in what 

 unequal quantities our rains fall in different and even slightly 

 remote portions of the Union. Thus, according to tables 

 recently published in the "Army Meteorological Register," 

 an important work, issued by order of the War Department 

 at Washington, the quantity varies from twenty-five inches 

 to sixty inches, yearly ; twenty-five being the average for 

 the Plains beyond the Rocky Mountains ; forty-two for the 



VOL. XXII. NO. III. 14 



