194 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



repays the many needless alarms which it has 

 sometimes occasioned. But 1 have already spun 

 my yarn too long, and will say to those who are 

 about purchasing one, and not acquainted with its 

 use, that they should always procure the direc- 

 tions for using them, and that the words on the 

 face are no guide for them to go by. 



Yours truly, Jack Crosstrees. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 METEOROLOGICAL RECORD FOR 

 MARCH, 1803. 



These observations are taken for, and under the 

 direction of the Smithsonian Institution. 



The average temperature of March was 24°; 

 average midday temperature, 32°. The corres- 

 ponding figures for March, 1862, were 32° and 

 39°. Warmest day the 25th, averaging 42°; cold- 

 est day the 13th, averaging 3° below zero. High- 

 est temperature 48°: lowest do., 18 below zero. 



Average height of mercury in the barometer, 

 29.32 inches ; do. for March, 1862, 29.10 inches. 

 Highest daily average, 29.79 inches on the 20th ; 

 lowest do., 28.92 inches, on the 29th. Range of 

 mercury from 28.80 inches to 29.90 inches. One 

 severe rain storm. Snow fell on fourteen days. 

 Amount of rain and melted snow 4.72 inches ; do., 

 of snow, 38.75 inches. Corresponding figures for 

 March, 1862, 4.82 inches and 18 inches. There 

 were two entirely clear days — four days were en- 

 tirely overcast. 



The severe cold spell during this month will be 

 remembered ; the average temperature of this 

 month being three degrees lower than that of Jan- 

 uary last ; though the midday temperatures aver- 

 aged the same, showing much greater coldness of 

 the nights. The comparison between the baro- 

 metrical and thermometrical averages of this 

 month and of March, 1862, will be noted with in- 

 terest. A. c. 



Claremont, N. H. 



A NEW TREE PROTECTOR. 



Messrs. Record & Blake, of Turner, Me., 

 have left with us a new device for preventing the 

 passage of canker worms up their trunks. It 

 consists of a copper wire sheath, which is to sur- 

 round the tree, and may be readily adjusted so as 

 to fit a tree of any ordinary size. The lower part 

 of this sheath is pressed into the ground during 

 the season when the borer is depositing its eggs. 



Over this sheath is another, in the form of an 

 inverted tunnel, which may also be adjusted so as 

 to fit trees of varying size. This, too, is made of 

 wire gauge, but may be of cheaper material, such 

 as tarred paper, or cloth saturated with oil or 

 some sticky substance. Each sheath has an elas- 

 tic strap by which the whole is snugly and safely 

 held in place. 



This contrivance seems to us the most perfect 

 one we have yet seen to keep the canker worm 

 from trees. We understand that the cost will not 

 be so high as to exclude its general use. 



He that blows the coals in quarrels he has noth- 

 ing to do with, has no right to complain if a spark 

 fly in his face. 



SPRING. 



Delicious spring ! God sends thee down 



To breathe upon his cold and perished works 



Beauteous revival ; earth should welcome thee. 



Thee and the west wind, thy smooth paramour. 



With the soft laughter of her flowery meads, 



Her joys, her melodies. The prancing stag 



Flutters the shivering fern ; the steed shakes out 



His mane, the dewy herbage silver-webb'd 



With frank step trampling ; the wild goat looks down 



From his empurpling bed of heath, where break 



The waters deep and blue with crystal gleams 



Of their quick-leaping people ; the fresh lark 



Is in the morning sky ; the nightingale 



Tunes even song to the dropping waterfall. 



Creation lives with loveliness, all melts 



And trembles into one mild harmony. Milmah. 



MINING UNDER THE SEA. 



Mining can hardly be a pleasant occupation. 

 The absence of sun and all natural light, the drip- 

 ping sides of the shaft, the danger of explosion 

 from the fire-damp, of jutting rocks and numer- 

 ous other perils, invest it with vague terrors to 

 active imaginations. But when the shafts run un- 

 der the sea, and the swell of the ocean is distinctly 

 audible, it must suggest many fears to the diligent 

 miners. The following graphic description is tak- 

 en from an English paper : 



We are now four hundred yards out under the 

 bottom of the sea, and twenty feet below the sea 

 level. Coast-trade vessels are sailing over our 

 heads. Two hundred and forty feet below us men 

 are at work, and there are galleries yet below that. 

 The extraordinary position down the face of the 

 clifi", of the engines and other works on the sur- 

 face, at Bottullie, is now explained. The mine is 

 not excavated like other mines under the earth, 

 but under the sea. Having communicated these 

 particulars the miner tells us to keep silence and 

 listen. We obey him, sitting speechless and mo- 

 tionless. If the reader could only have beheld 

 us now, dressed in our copper colored garments, 

 huddled close together in a mere cleft of subter- 

 ranean rock, with a flame burning on our heads, 

 and darkness enveloping our limbs, he must cer- 

 tainly have imagined, without any violent stretch 

 of fancy, that he was looking down upon a con- 

 clave of gnomes. 



After listening a few minutes, a distant and un- 

 earthly sound becomes faintly audible — a long, 

 low, mysterious moaning that never changes, that 

 is full on the ear as well as heard by it, a sound 

 that might proceed from incalculable distance — 

 from some far invisible height — a sound unlike 

 anything that is heard on the upper ground, in the 

 free air of heaven — a sound so sublimely mourn- 

 ful and still, so ghostly and impressive when lis- 

 tened to in the subterranean recesses of the earth, 

 that we continue instinctively to hold our peace 

 as if enchanted by it, and think not of communi- 

 cating to each other the strange awe and astonish- 

 ment which it has inspired in us from the very 

 first. 



At last the miner speaks again, and tells us that 

 what we hear is the sound of the surf lashing the 

 rocks a hundred and twenty feet above us and of 

 the waves that are breaking on the beach beyond. 

 The tide is now at the flow, and the sea is in no 

 extraordinary state of agitation, so the sound is 

 low and distant just at this period. But when 

 storms are at their height, when the ocean hurls 

 mountain after mountain of water on the clifi"s, 

 then the noise is terrific ; the roaring heard down 

 here in the mine is so inexpressibly fierce and aw- 



