ATMOSPHERIC EFFECTS ON VEGETATION. 249 
able always satisfactorily to see why a tide of good for- 
tune should flow at the desire of one, and ebb from the 
wishes of another ; yet many of the occurrences of 
human life are perhaps not so extraordinary as they are 
made to appear by the suppression of facts, or our igno- 
rance of circumstances. 
The effects of atmospheric changes upon vegetation 
have been noticed in the rudest ages : even the simplest 
people have remarked their influence on the appetites 
of their cattle, so that to “ eat like a rabbit before rain ” 
has become proverbial, from the common observance of 
the fact : but the influence of the electric fluid upon 
the common herbage has not been, perhaps, so gene- 
rally perceived. My men complain to-day that they 
cannot mow, that they “ cannot any how make a hand 
of it,” as the grass hangs about the blade of the scythe, 
and is become tough and woolly ; heavy rains are falling 
to the southward, and thunder rolls around us; this in- 
dicates the electric state of the air, and points out the 
influence that atmospheric temperature and condition 
have upon organized and unorganized bodies, though 
from their nature not always manifested, all terrestrial 
substances being replete with electric matter. In the 
case here mentioned, it appears probable that the state 
of the air induced a temporary degree of moisture to 
arise from the earth, or to be given out by the air, and 
that this moisture conducted the electric fluid to the 
vegetation of the field. Experiments prove that elec- 
tric matter discharged into a vegetable withers and de- 
stroys it ; and it appeared to me at the time, but I am 
no electrician, that an inferior or natural portion of this 
fluid, such as was then circulating around, had influ- 
enced my grass in a lower degree, so as not to wither, 
but to cause it to flag, and become tough, or, as they 
call it in some counties, to “wilt;” the farina of the 
grass appeared damper than is usual, by its hanging 
about the blades of the scythes more than it commonly 
does; the stone removed it, as the men whetted them, 
just at the edge, but they were soon clogged again. As 
the thunder cleared away, the impediments became less 
obvious, and by degrees the difficulties ceased. The 
