AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
Farm, Garden, and. UIoirsellolcL. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, ASK MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”— Washinqtos. 
OEAKOE JUDD COMPANY,) ESTABLISHED IN 1842. ( TERMS: $1.50 per Annum in Advance, post-free ; 
Publishers and Proprietors, 24:5 Broadway. f German Edition issued at the same rates as in English* Four Copies $5* Single Number, 15 Cents* 
VOLUME XXXIX.—No. 2. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY, 1880. NEW SERIES—No. 397. 
This picture is from a noted steel engraving, 
■which we hardly need say is European, as every de¬ 
tail of wagon, horses, and men assert the scene to 
be foreign—all except the snow, that has a home¬ 
like look, hut snow storms are much alike where- 
ever they occur. Still there is a difference in 
snow and snow storms. Those large light flakes 
that float leisurely downward, “as if the celestial 
geese were being plucked ”—the apt simile of some 
one—those fluffy, pretentious flakes make a great 
show, but they do not make the great snows ; they 
indicate dampness and foretell a not very distant 
cessation of the fall. It is the little glistening 
scales, so fine that they make but little show in the 
air, that “mean business;” it is those that when they 
are sifting down so dry as to fairly rattle one another 
as they seek out every crevice, and pack closely, 
that come with our serious storms—those of the 
kind always called “ old fashioned,” though we 
never hear of a “ new fashioned ” snow storm. To 
be snow-beleagued if not lost in the snow, is an 
experience more pleasant to look back upon, than 
In its immediate enjoyment. What a desolate 
blankness spreads in every direction. There was 
no evidence of human existence to cover up except 
a trail that marked the course ; unbroken, track¬ 
less whiteness everywhere. No food for horses, 
very little food for men, two hundred miles to the 
nearest known help ! It does not require many 
inches of snow in a roadless country to make 
wagons useless as vehicles of locomotion. Snow 
storms there away at the present day defy the iron 
horse—even four of them tandem, and what could 
our poor, jaded, skeleton horses do ? Like the 
horses in the picture, they gave it up, and looked 
at us with a dazed expression, as if to say—“Weill 
what next ?” How beautiful these dry snows are 1 
What an illustration of the power of accumulation. 
Each tiny flake so insignificant in size, yet com¬ 
bined, they defy the most powerful engines. How 
exquisite their forms, and how varied ! Not an 
angle since the first snow flake fell until now 
but measures exactly 60” or its equivalent. Then 
to think that this exquisite sculpturing is repeated 
times as far beyond our comprehension as are the 
distances of the farthest stars. “But did you 
think of all this when snowed in ? ” Oh, no ! we 
took an account of our salt pork and hard-tack. 
Copyright, 1880, by Obange Judd Company. 
Entered at the Post Office at New Yobk, N. Y., as Second Class Matteb. 
