306 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



Fur the New England Farmer. 

 THE WINTER OF 1861-2. 



Messrs. Editors : — To-day Ave enter upon 

 April, which, according to the old calendar, is the 

 second month of spring. Yet we have anything 

 but spring. Winter holds a princely reign upon 

 these hills. We have had three months and ten 

 days, one hundred days of sleighing, with a pros- 

 pect of its continuance for some days. Almost 

 one-third of the year ! What a long period for 

 the ground to l)e buried in snow ! 



It has not been a cold winter. The lowest 

 point to which the mercury has fallen, was five 

 degrees below zero, and this only once. Last 

 year it sunk below that point in each of the win- 

 ter and the first spring months. Once, you recol- 

 lect, from ten or twelve degrees above freezing, 

 in twelve hours, it went down, down, with us, to 

 twenty-eight belov>' zero. This was a rapid and 

 extreme change, and that the coldest morning we 

 ever knew ; we said the fruit was used up for that 

 year ; so it was, and the old trees were nearly used 

 up, too. So fatal were its effects on them, tliat 

 many an old orchard has been pruned by cutting 

 down. This year, the trees that remain, we think, 

 will bear fruit. What a luxury it will be, to again 

 have a full supply from one's own orchard. The 

 visions of health and comfort lie in the idea. The 

 winter has approached nearer to an even temper- 

 ature than any we have had fV)r many years. 

 There has been no very cold weather — none very 

 warm. Our thaws have been short, and of little 

 effect. But very little rain has fallen, and this 

 has mostly congealed as it fell, so that ice on the 

 trees has followed. We have had several hail or 

 sleet storms from the east, and these were usually 

 attended by high winds, so the material was driv- 

 en into very compact drifts. Li the woods these 

 storms formed a crust, very annoying to teams. 



The quantity of snow, hail and sleet that has 

 fallen has been large ; not less than four or five 

 feet. Much of this material still remains. The 

 roads are full, the fields are thickly covered, and 

 the quantity in the woods is anything but com- 

 fortable to man or beast. It is wasting away, but 

 not fast enough to raise the streams at all. 



The season has been remarkable for high winds. 

 On the evening of January 1st, the wintl, after a 

 pleasant day, sprung up in the north-west and 

 blew a tempest through the night. It was a fatal 

 wind to some apparently strong buildings. The 

 27th of February was thawy from a south wind 

 and some rain in the early part of the day, but at 

 three o'clock, in the afternoon, the wind came 

 round to the north-west, and attended with a vio- 

 lent fall of snow, blew a tornado through the 

 night. The result was, several buildings were 

 blown down, and the roads and railroads block- 

 aded, so tliat tlie cars met with serious detention. 

 But two days of calm coolness elapsed, and Bore- 

 as started his blast again, and a new and more ef- 

 fectual blockade was laid, in consequence of which 

 the mails were delayed forty-eight liours. 



We have alluded to the hundred days of sleigh- 

 ing. This reckoning includes it only from De- 

 cember 20th to the ])resent time, to which add 

 twelve days of sleighing the latter part of No- 

 vember and early in December, and we have had 

 one hundred and twelve days of moving on snow. 

 Ten days more will fill up a third of the year. 



Present appearances favor its continuance for that 

 time. 



The winter has been very favorable to all kinds 

 of stock, or, perhaps, I should do better to say, 

 that the better care f;xrmers take of their stock, 

 by providing them with warm and dry stables and 

 sheds, shows the good results of improved care in 

 the matter. It lias become a principle largely 

 carried into practice, that an animal well protect- 

 ed from the inclemency of the season, is not only 

 cheaper kept, but is more docile and less subject 

 to disease. Many of our best farmers, now, keep 

 their cattle stabled nearly all the while, unless in 

 warm, sunshiny days, and, in severe storms, go so 

 far as to carry water to their stables. 



Warm stables and sheds are doing wonders for 

 the comfort of animals ; but in giving them the 

 stables we have been too apt to exclude the light, 

 a quality as essential to animals as it is to plants, 

 and we all know that plants will lose their health 

 and hardiness if grown in the dark. Further, a 

 window in the south part of a stable operates es- 

 sentially to modify the temperature. The days of 

 winter, we know, arc short, and many of them 

 are darkened by clouds, yet light in itself is the 

 herald of warmth, and a little sunshine on a shel- 

 tered spot improves the temperature. Then an 

 animal that can see what is going on in the stable 

 loses much of the fear that results from a noise 

 in the dark. It is certainly iileasanter milking 

 and taking the general care of animals in a light 

 stable than in a dark one. No stable is right 

 without its windows. William Bacon. 



Richmond, April 1, 1862. 



EFFECTS OF THIRST. 



The oxen had now been four days without wa- 

 ter, and their distress was already very great. 

 Their hollow flanks, drooping heads, and low mel- 

 ancholy moans uttered at intervals, told but too 

 ])lainly their misery, and went to my heart lil^e 

 daggers. My poor horse was no longer an ani- 

 mated creature, but a spectre of himself — a gaunt, 

 staggering skeleton. The change that had come 

 upon him within the last twenty-four hours was 

 incredible. From time to time he put his head 

 into the wagon into any one's hands, and looking 

 wistfully and languidly into his face, Avould re- 

 proachfully (his looks conveyed as much) seem to 

 say : "Cruel man, don't you see I am dying ; 

 why don't you relieve my burning thirst ?" The 

 dogs, again, ceased to recognize my caress. Their 

 eyes were so deeply sunken in their sockets as to 

 be scarcely perceptible. They glided about in 

 spectral silence ; death was in their faces. The 

 wagon was heavily laden, the soil exceedingly 

 heavy, the sun in the day-time like an immense 

 burning-glass, and the oppressiveness of the at- 

 mosphere was greatly increased by the tremendous 

 "veldt" fires which, ravaging IJie country far and 

 wide, made it like a huge fiery furnace. — Ander- 

 son's Okacancjo River. 



The Wire Worm. — At the discussion of a 

 farmers' club in Buffalo, 111., Mr. Franklin Reed 

 said that the ravages of the wire worm could be 

 ]irevented by putting half of a fresh cob in each 

 iiill. The worm would work into this and leave 

 the corn. 



