X BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



warmest day, the maximum being higher than is usual so 

 late in the season. Light frosts were general, and killing 

 frosts occurred on all low lands, but in most of the upland or 

 protected districts hardy garden plants and late vegetables 

 were growing at the close of the month, untouched by frosts. 

 The prevailing wind was west. The rainfall was abundant 

 in all sections for growth of grass and grain seeds and for 

 ploughing and seeding; but except in the extreme south- 

 east there had not been enough to fill up wells and springs 

 to any extent. The first snow of the season fell on the 

 evening of the 14th, in the Berkshire hills, in the north- 

 eastern part of the State. Enough came on this date and 

 also on the 17th to whiten the ground, but it soon melted. 

 The thunder-storm on the evening of the 13th was quite 

 severe in south-eastern districts. At Taunton the storm 

 was accompanied by very heavy rain, 1.75 inches falling in 

 three-fourths of an hour. 



November was decidedly a wintry month, with a slight 

 excess of rainfall in south-eastern districts and a deficiency 

 in western. It was much colder than the normal. At Blue 

 Hill it was pronounced the coldest November in the past ten 

 years. At Monroe it was the coldest in seven years of ob- 

 servation. The first three days of the month were the warm- 

 est and the 20th and 30th the coldest at most places. At 

 Boston this year gave the coldest Thanksgiving Day since 

 1873. The cold wave on the 6th-7th following the severe 

 snow-storm gave the first killing frost of the season at a 

 number of places in the State. 



The storm of the 5th-6th gave its heaviest snow about 

 thirty miles from the coast, but it was a most severe storm 

 throughout the State. Telegraph and telephone poles and 

 wires especially suffered, and went down by hundreds and 

 almost thousands. Fruit trees were heavily coated with 

 ice and snow, and were much damaged. The voluntary ob- 

 server at Taunton reported it the worst storm ever known in 

 that city. At Hyannis the wind was reported by old resi- 

 dents to be the hardest ever known ; chimneys, trees, fences 

 and out-buildings were thrown down. G. E. Fuller, M.D., 

 of Monson, reported it the hardest storm of the kind in 

 twenty-six years. 



