THE WEATHER PROPHET. 193 



crops of all kinds are everywhere making the most satisfactory 

 progress ; and although the unseasonable hail and intense cold of 

 ten days ago was yery trying to the young potato plants in exposed 

 situations, we are glad to say that no serious damage has resulted, 

 the change from cold to milder weather having been very gradual. 

 The damage in such cases always depends on the suddenness, or the 

 contrary, of the transition from a low to a high temperature ; a night 

 of frost, followed by a hot sun next day, being most dangerous to 

 vegetable life, while frost, followed by rain and cloud, and so on 

 gradually to heat and sunshine again, rarely does any more harm 

 than merely to give a slight check to what might otherwise prove 

 an unhealthy rapidity of growth. In the same way it is found 

 that in the case of animals generally, and in man particularly, it is 

 not the actual and immediate amount of cold undergone at any 

 time that kills or maims, but the too sudden transition from a 

 very low temperature to a comparatively high one. It is probably 

 well enough known to the reader that very many of our flowers 

 and plants are hygrometric, some of them very sensitively so. By 

 hygrometric we mean that they spread out or expand their parts 

 when the sun is bright and the weather is dry, while they contract 

 or close them on the approach of moisture and cloud. We would 

 at present draw attention to the fact that the potato plant, in its 

 earlier stages of growth, is very sensitive in this respect, more so 

 in some years than in others perhaps, according as the plants have 

 come up, strong and vigorous and healthy, or the reverse ; for we 

 think our observations during many years warrant us in saying 

 that the more vigorous and healthier the plant, the more sensitive 

 wUl it be found to weather changes — its very sensitiveness in this 

 respect, observe, helping forward its growth and preserving its 

 vitality, by enabling it to avail itself of every favourable influence, 

 just as it enables it to protect itself against such influences as are 

 unfavourable or adverse. We were particularly struck with this 



