oy . 
Meteorological Journal at Marietta, Ohio. 265 
The mean of the spring months is 52° 33’; being rather below 
that of the previous year. ring frosts continued to harass us 
as late as May, While on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of April, the frost 
Was severe, sinking the temperature to 23°, It happened after a 
week of quite warm weather, and at a time when the pear, peach 
and plum were in bloom—killing nearly all these fruits. The 
apple did not bloom until the 27th of the month, but the germs 
were so much injured that the crop was almost entirely destroyed. 
One of the serious evils attached to our climate, is the frequent 
occurrence of late spring frosts at a time when fruit trees are most 
liable to injury. The beginning of May was marked by excess 
sive rains, there falling nearly six inches during that month. 
he mean temperature of the summer months is seventy-one 
degrees and five hundredths, which is about two degrees above 
that of 1848, and exactly that of 1846. 
At two o’clock, on the morning of the 15th of June, a tre- 
mendous storm of electric fluid passed over this region, continu- 
ing for nearly two hours to discharge a continual stream of light- 
ning, accompanied by terrific peals of thunder ; several dwelling 
houses were struck, and trees demolished in the town. [t ran 
along the telegraph wires into the office at Marietta, and ruined 
the magnetic machine. There fell two inches of rain, attended 
with little or no wind. The latter part of June was quite wet, 
rain falling almost daily, with a hot moist atmosphere, accompa- 
nied near the rivers with fogs. This state of the weather has 
this year prevailed throughout all the southern portions of Ohio, 
of these states, being later in ripening, suffered but little. 
the progress of the reapers, covering the garments of the work- 
men with a red powder, as if colored by adye. The same red 
fungus attacked the leaves of the common blackberry bushes, 
near the wheat, and was seen on the earth in divers places in the 
fields and in some gardens. Its effects were ruinous to the wheat 
crops, shrinking the grain in the most favored fields fifteen or 
twenty pounds in the bushel, destroying its farina so that mer- 
chantable flour could not be made from it, and causing a loss to 
the farming interest of several millions of dollars. ‘Thousands of 
acres were entifely ruined and not harvested atall. Rye suffered 
more than wheat, being somewhat earlier in its growth. Grapes 
were attacked in the same manner, the mould on them being 
e, attaching itself to the stems, causing the fruit to blight 
onD Serres, Vol. IX, No. 26.—March, 1850. 34 
‘se 
