REMARKS ON THE WEATHER. 
Although there have been several nights in the early part of 
the month in which we have experienced pretty keen frost and 
rain alternately, there has not been so much of either as to kill what 
was tender, or check materially what is growing. Turnips sown since 
the commencement of the rains are still going on, though now but 
slowly ; nor is it likely they will ever arrive at a great size. Celery 
has lately become very bulky, and will generally be very fine. The 
different kinds of the Brassicce are also attaining a good size, though 
the common sorts, such as savoys, coleworts, &c., which should now be 
plentifully in season, are both scarce and, consequently, very dear in 
the market. 
Accounts from the northern counties speak of hills covered with 
snow, and other signs of winter: a little has fallen to the eastward of 
London, but quickly disappeared. The autumn, therefore, continues 
very much like what we have had in the last and other previous years, 
namely, changeable, but generally open and mild. If the same kind of 
weather continue through December, clearer skies and keener air may 
be expected with the lengthening days, and then the vigilance of the 
cultivator will be called into action, and the necessity of fire and dung 
heat, and thick coverings for all perishable plants, will be found indis¬ 
pensable. In such seasons, watching the face of the sky is a very 
necessary part of the gardener’s business, the study of meteorology 
being one of the auxiliaries of his success. Extreme caution against 
sudden changes of the weather is but seldom repented of; and trusting 
to the mild aspect of an evening is often bitterly lamented on the return 
of the next day. 
On the evening of the 18th, and, if we mistake not, on two or three 
cloudy evenings before, we had a beautiful exhibition of the Aurora 
Borealis, or northern lights, which put almost all the fire-engines in 
London in motion. A luminous arch, subtending twenty or thirty 
degrees of the northern horizon, and rising in the centre about fifteen 
degrees above the latter, was strikingly visible for several hours on the 
above-stated evening. Such appearances (attributed to the presence of 
an electric fluid) are said to succeed “ a long continuance of dry wea¬ 
ther.” It may be so; but in the present case the effect has not followed 
closely after the assigned cause. But it has also been affirmed that these 
appearances portend fine or dry weather ; and, if that which we now 
enjoy be continued, we shall be rather inclined to put faith in the latter 
prediction. It is somewhat remarkable, that the Rev. W. B. Clarke, a 
correspondent of Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, had urged 
upon the readers of that work to “ be upon the watch ” for such appear¬ 
ances on the 12th or 13th of November, as about that time, sooner or 
later, he expected a display of such meteors. 
