226 A JVorthern Winter. 
more leisure time in the year for mental improvement. While on 
this point we will venture to say, as a class of men, that if one 
half of the efforts were made iby us to improve the mind that 
there is in buying land, cattle, and in making money, we might all 
of us be made " scientific farmers," of the " first water," in the 
next five years to come. 
The truth is, that the cultivation of the soil, at the present day, 
without the aid of intelligence or information, or on the care-for- 
nothing principle, is at once a low, menial drudgery. But on the 
other hand, when guided by skill and science there is no business 
which so elevates the condition of man in this life. 
It is well known, however, that science alone will not make a 
good farmer without the aid of practice; but once blended together, 
with careful management, then may we look for good success in 
farming. And now, when scientific men have volunteered in the 
cause of the farmer, to instruct him to analyze his soils, etc., will 
the farmer remain in the back ground against all these improve- 
ments? But, after all these advantages, if the farmer chooses to 
go on in the old hard beaten track of his father, without stopping 
to ask the why and wherefore, then so be it. However, in these 
days of agricultural schools, experimental farms, chemists, etc., 
we have reason to expect better things. This however will 
remain to be seen hereafter. 
Derby, Conn., 1848. 
A NORTHERN WINTER. 
1848, January 1. Weather mild and rainy. Lake Champlain 
clear of ice. 
Jan. 2. Steamboats Norwich and Columbia arrived from N. Y. 
Jan. 5. A canal boat laden with flour arrived at Syracuse from 
Baldwinsville. 
Jan. 7. Weather cold and fine. Thermometer marked 4° above 
zero. Columbia left for New York at 1 o'clock — last boat. 
Jan. 9. Snow 6 to 8 inches deep. Steamboat landed mail at 
New Baltimore. 
Jan. 10. Thermometer marked zero at 7 A. M. 
Jan. 11. Thermometer at Albany 17 to 18° below zero. At 
Amsterdam, 36 below. Rochester, 8 below. Troy, 16 below. 
N. Y. and Brooklyn, 3 above. Boston, 10 below. Fryburgh, 
Me., 36 to 39 below. Franconia, N. H., 45 below. The steam- 
boat Columbia which left N. Y. the night before, was compelled 
to return after running up the river 30 miles. 
Jan. 14 and 15, a general thaw. 
