AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
339 
CYCLE OF GOOD AND BAD CROPS. 
Tiie article given below, from a recent num¬ 
ber of the Scotsman, will be read with interest 
by every inquiring, investigating farmer. The 
theories advanced are new, and as yet are only 
theories, but we must confess they have some 
plausibility. It will be seen that for thirty- 
seven years past, there have been successive 
periods of four and five years of alternate good 
and bad crops; and that science sheds a glim¬ 
mering ray of light upon the cause of these pe¬ 
riodic variations. It will also be seen, that, if 
the theory proposed prove a correct one, we 
have just entered upon a four or five years 
course of poor crops generally over the globe; 
and consequently a season of corresponding 
high prices. The article is as follows: 
The “ uncertainty of the weather” has been 
a subject of complaint to the husbandman from 
time immemorial. Science has shown, however, 
that law and order prevail in many phenomena 
once deemed to be under the blind dominion of 
chance, and ingenious men have indulged the 
hope that a key might yet be found to the irre¬ 
gularity of the seasons—not that we shall be 
able to prognosticate whether any particular day 
or week will be foul or fair, but that we may 
have rational grounds for expecting a good sea¬ 
son or a bad one, or a series of good or bad sea¬ 
sons. Intelligent farmers generally believe that 
a course of abundant crops is pretty sure to be 
followed by a course of deficient ones; but 
whether the cycle of good and bad crops is of a 
determinate or a variable length, and if deter¬ 
minate, how many years are required to com¬ 
plete it, are points upon which opinions differ 
widely, and certainty is perhaps despaired of. 
A paper read a few days ago by M. Becqcerel 
to the Academy of Sciences, on the culture of 
wheat in France, supplies statistical facts of some 
value bearing on this subject. They show that 
there is a periodicity in the recurrence of good 
and bad harvests; that five or six years of abund¬ 
ance, and five or six of scarcity, follow each 
other pretty regularly. From want of capital 
and enterprise, and good means of internal com¬ 
munication, the French are more dependent on 
their own harvests than we are in this country, 
and the difference between a good and a bad 
year telling more strongly on their markets, 
serves better to test the influence of the seasons. 
M. Becquerel quotes from Count Hugo the fol¬ 
lowing table of the average price of wheat for all 
France: 
Francs Shillings 
per hect. per qr. 
1816 to 1821—period of scarcity.23.66 54s. 5d. 
1822 to 1827—period of abundance.15.80 36s. 4d. 
1828 to 1832—period of scarcity.22.00 50s. 7d. 
1833 to 1837—period of abundance.16.16 37s. 2d. 
1838 to 1842—mixed period.20.31 46s. 8d. 
1843 to 1847—period of scarcity.25 68 59s. Od. 
1848 to 1852—period of abundance.16.68 '38s. 4d. 
We arrive at a similar result by comparing 
the imports and exports of wheat, and taking 
the excess of the one over the other : 
Scarcity.. 1816 to 1821. 
Plenty ..1822 to 1827. 
Scarcity.. 1828 to 1832 
Plenty 1833 to 1837 
Mixed ..1838 to 1842 
Scarcity.. 1843 to 1847. 
Plenty .. 1848 to 1852. 
Excess of Imports.. 
Exports.. 
” Imports.. 
Exports . 
” Imports.. 
” Imports,. 
” Exports.. 
Hectolitres. 
6,247,000 
1,258,000 
9,528,000 
944,000 
1,126,000 
18,697,000 
13,188,000 
The hectolitre contains 22 imperial gallons, 
or three hectolitres are a trifle more than a quar¬ 
ter, (480 lbs.) It will be observed that the im¬ 
portation of wheat in France, in years of scar¬ 
city, is very small when compared with ours. 
Thus, in the period from 1843 to 1847, while 
wheat averaged 59s.—a very high price in that 
country—the whole imports in the five years 
were only 20,161,000 hectolitres, from which, 
deducting 1,164,000 of exports, there remained 
for consumption only 18,697,000, or 6,400,000 
qrs. In the period of scarcity, from 1816 to 
1821, when the price was 54s. 5d., the imports 
were only 6,247,000 hectolitres in six years, or 
about 345,000 qrs. annually. 
The five years from 1847 to 1852 were years 
of abundance both in France and Britain. Sup¬ 
posing, then, that the change takes place quin- 
quennially, we should now be at the commence¬ 
ment of a period of scarcity, and that the pres¬ 
ent year fulfils this character is manifest from 
the state of the markets on both sides of the 
Channel. The French average for the first two 
weeks of November, as given in the Moniteur a 
few days ago, was 29.97 per hect., or 68s. lid. 
per qr.—a famine price in France; and the Brit¬ 
ish average for the whole of November was 71s. 
Id., marking rather severe dearth. It is, there¬ 
fore, a question of some importance, whether 
we are to regard the present deficient crop as a 
pure “casualty,” an evil which an opposite cas- 
uality the next year’s abundance may redeem, 
or as the first of a series of bad crops. In our 
opinion , the hypothesis of a Jive years' cycle, 
embracing the latter conclusion, though not es¬ 
tablished beyond challenge, has a sufficient pro¬ 
bability to render it worthy of entering into the 
calculations of farmers, corn merchants, con¬ 
tractors for public works, and even ministers of 
state. 
A hypothesis offered to explain anomalous or 
seemingly discordant physical facts is more 
readily accepted when we can trace in it the 
operation of some physical cause. In the Scots¬ 
man of the 6th of September, 1845, we gave an 
account of a memoir published by Schwabe, a 
German astronomer, on the spots of the sun, in 
which he maintained their periodicity, that they 
increased for a certain term, then diminished 
for an equal term, and that the interval between 
the maximum and minimum was about five 
years, so that the cycle was completed in about 
ten. This conclusion rested on the observations 
of 18 years, which (as Colonel Sabine informed 
the British Association at Belfast) have been 
since extended to twenty-six years, and with 
the same result. Now, as the light and heat of 
the sun are obviously essential to the success of 
grain crops, it occurred to Gautier, a French or 
Swiss man of science, to compare Schwabe’s 
cycle of the solar spots with the results of the 
harvests in France, as shown by the price of 
corn; and he found that, taking the years in 
groups, to eliminate accidental influences, those 
in which the sun had few or no spots coincided 
with years of abundance, and those in which 
the spots were numerous with years of scarcity. 
We have here, then, a glimpse of a physical 
cause to account_for these alternating periods of 
scarcity and plenty, which experience has forced 
upon the attention of our farmers. It is true 
that the spots of the sun cover but a very small 
portion of his surface at any time, but the de¬ 
crement of heat in a bad year is also small com¬ 
pared with the whole quantity which the earth 
receives from the sun ; and it is not improbable 
that, besides causing a direct loss of light and 
heat proportioned to their size, spots when 
abundant may indicate a general enfeeblement 
of the heating and illuminating power of the 
whole surface of the sun. 
The progress of science is constantly adding 
to our knowledge of the latent ties which con¬ 
nect the most distant parts of nature. Those 
minute deviations from the normal position of 
the magnetic needle, called its diurnal variation, 
were discovered a hundred years ago, and gave 
plain indications of solar influence. It was only 
known within these few years that these varia¬ 
tions were themselves subject to variation— 
were greater in some years than in others—and 
that another class of phenomena, called “mag¬ 
netic storms,” sudden and seemingly unaccount¬ 
able disturbances of the needle, disclosed them¬ 
selves. It is now found that these are periodi¬ 
cal also. To use the words of Colonel Sabine, 
“there is a periodical variation or inequality af¬ 
fecting alike the magnitude of the diurnal varia¬ 
tion, and the magnitude and frequency of the 
disturbances of storms, and the cycle or period 
of the inequality appears to extend about ten of 
our years, the maximum and minimum being 
separated by an interval of about five years.” 
Perhaps by-and-by the hopes and prospects of 
the husbandman may be read in the vibrations 
of the compass ? 
Comparative Value of Crops as Food for Milch Cows. 
The following report to the Essex County 
(Mass.) Agricultural Society, at their last meet¬ 
ing, comes to us endorsed as “A matter-of-fact 
document," by some friend whose initials we 
could not clearly make out. The facts, however, 
speak for themselves, and the name of the wri¬ 
ter is, we think, a sufficient guarantee for their 
reliability. The report is well worthy of a care¬ 
ful perusal. We have made several corrections 
which seemed to be needed in the copy received. 
With these corrections the report is as follows: 
The Committee on the Comparative Value of 
Crops as Food for Cattle, have received no state¬ 
ment respecting .bis subject for the past two 
years. Being Cnmrman of that Committee, I 
have often been requested by several members 
of the Society, to give the result of my experi¬ 
ence. I feel extremely reluctant in so doing, 
not because I am not fully satisfied by that re¬ 
sult, but because it differs so much from that of 
able and distinguished agriculturists in other 
parts of the State. Nevertheless, if this com¬ 
munication should stimulate others to make fur¬ 
ther experiments, so that we can arrive at the 
true value of the different kinds of food for cat¬ 
tle, although they may differ much from my 
own, I shall feel fully compensated for contri¬ 
buting the following. 
In the spring of 1850, I sowed forty-two 
square rods of land to carrots, on which corn 
was raised for fodder the year previous, plow¬ 
ing in two cords of well-rotted stable manure. 
There were sixteen young apple trees growing 
on the land, which had been set three years; 
the soil a black, strong loam—the yield was one 
hundred and fifty-six bushels. 
January 1st, 1851, I purchased twelve new 
milch cows and commenced selling my milk. 
After the first two weeks, my son observed that 
he did not have milk enough for his customers 
by about three gallons per day, and that I had 
better buy more cows—but, believing as I did 
at that time, I could easily increase the milk of 
my present number one quart each per day, by 
feeding with carrots, I accordingly ordered the 
man who tended the stock to commence the 
next morning, (January 15th,) to give two and 
one-half bushels of carrots to the twelve cows, 
morning and night, for the next seven days. I 
then inquired of my son how much the cows 
had increased, and to my surprise, his answer 
was, not quite two gallons for the week. I then 
resolved to attend to the feeding myself, and fed 
the next seven days with hay only. The result 
was no diminution. I then fed with carrots as 
before, the next seven days, and there was less 
than one gallon increase. I continued the same 
feed alternately for the next four weeks ending 
March 12th; during which time the cows fell 
off some in their milk, but not more than one 
gallon when fed on hay only, than when carrots 
were added. The hay used during the trial was 
first quality English hay, with a small foddering 
of salt hay in the morning. I continued feeding 
the same kind of hay night and morning, giving 
at noon as much rowen hay as they would eat 
in thirty to forty minutes, which increased the 
milk more than one quart to each cow daily for 
the next four weeks. By this time I was fully 
satisfied it would not pay to raise carrots for 
milch cows, and that I would try some other 
method. 
In April, 1851, I prepared and sowed the 
same piece of land with onions, where carrots 
grew the year previous, using the same quantity 
of manure. The yield was one hundred and 
sixty-eight bushels, which I sold for forty-seven 
cents per pushel, amounting to seventy-eight 
dollars and ninety-six cents. In November fol¬ 
lowing I bought four tons of shorts in Boston, 
at nineteen dollars per ton—freight to Bradford 
one dollar and forty-five cents per ton, making 
