JOHN C. GRAY'S ADDRESS. 199 



It is not only from season to season, that our transitions are 

 thus rapid ; they occur weekly, and almost daily ; so that a sin- 

 gle day sometimes exhibits what may be called, without vio- 

 lence, an epitome of the whole year. But, after all, these sud- 

 den and severe changes, this fierceness of heat and intensity of 

 cold, these rapid and violent alternations from the one to the 

 other, however they may task the skill of the mere gardener, 

 produce far less injury than might be supposed, in our great ag- 

 ricultural operations. 



But there is one feature of our climate, which is a far more 

 prolific source of anxiety to the farmer. I allude to our long 

 droughts. These occur so frequently, I had almost said, so 

 constantly, that a season entirely exempted from them, is to be 

 considered merely an occasional exception. Can any thing be 

 done to alleviate the effects of these visitations 7 But little, it 

 may be said ; yet, I think, much more than has been generally 

 imagined. To hope to supply the want of rain by artificial 

 watering, applied upon a scale of any extent, must, of course, 

 be entirely out of the question, inasmuch as a single shower of 

 one inch — and this, though a copious, is, by no means, an ex- 

 traordinary shower — furnishes to an acre of land about a thou- 

 sand barrels of water. We can render no assistance to our 

 grass and English grain ; but for our trees, and for every crop 

 which admits of culture by the plough or hoe, there is one sim- 

 ple expedient, which has been greatly undervalued and neg- 

 lected. I mean the stirring of the soil. This practice has been 

 scarcely noticed by agricultural writers. I find no mention of 

 it in English books ; perhaps, because, in Great Britain, a 

 drought is comparatively a rare evil ; and the first publication 

 I have seen upon the subject, is a communication by the late 

 Mr. Lowell, to the editor of the New England Farmer. It 

 seems probable, that when the earth is loosened, and its pores 

 laid open, it acts like a sponge, in absorbing moisture from the 

 atmosphere ; but whatever the mode of operation, the fact is 

 certain, that, by repeatedly stirring the soil in dry weather, a 

 moisture on the surface is invariably produced, and any one 

 may satisfy himself on this point, in a few minutes. An intel- 

 ligent farmer, in my neighborhood, once stated, that, in sowing 



