t 
638 
study of the weather, and of the inferences to 
be drawn from precedent and from natural and 
artificial data, comes fraught with numerous and 
important considerations. Like the angler, the 
husbandman ‘must observe the wind, sun, and 
clouds by day; the moon, stars, and waves of 
the air by night.’ Few are so entirely depen- 
dent on the caprice of the weather, for the com- 
monest routine operations of the farm, as the 
agriculturist.” 
Many of the most common weather-prognos- 
tics have been observed in all ages from very 
ancient times till the present day, and in all 
sorts of countries of similar climates and lati- 
tudes from the most barbarous to the most civi- 
lized, and by all classes of the population inter- 
ested in them from the most boorish peasant to 
the most intelligent land-owner. A very emi- 
nent writer on them was Aratus, a Greek poet, 
who lived so long ago as about 270 years before 
the Christian era. In fact, “it is their being 
familiar to almost every age and country,” as 
Mr. Foster remarks, “ which affords the strong- 
est confirmation of their correctness to those 
who have not had constant experience of them.” 
| Some popular prognostics, indeed, are founded 
| on mistake, or on very limited and peculiar ob- 
servation, and therefore possess no value, or of- 
tener mislead than direct; and even all, or almost 
all, are denounced by certain theoretic writers as 
matters of mere superstition, empiricism, and 
quackery; but the great majority of the best 
known or most generally diffused are more or 
less true, and have been founded on extensive 
and scrutinous observation, and can easily be 
vindicated or explained by an appeal to heat, 
light, electricity, atmospheric pressure, and the 
other physical agencies which control the che- 
mistry of the air and of organic bodies; and 
even some of the more obscure or seemingly 
outré ones, which cannot readily or at all be 
accounted for in the present state of science, 
rest on such sure observation as to be well worth 
the attention, not only of farmers for assisting 
their prescience of the weather, but of meteoro- 
logists for prompting and guiding their inquiries 
into the unexplored or unknown departments of 
the vast natural agency of our world. 
We shall omit all reference here to prognostics 
by the barometer and by other artificial means, 
and shall present our readers with a somewhat 
large collection of natural prognostics, compris- 
ing most of the best and many of the middle-rate, 
but excluding all the inferior or most doubtful ; 
and we shall arrange these in a sort of classified 
order under the heads of prognostics by plants, 
|| prognostics by animals, prognostics by air and 
sky, prognostics by the heavenly bodies, prog- 
nostics peculiar to certain seasons, and prognos- 
tics peculiar to upland districts. But we must 
say to our readers, as Henry Stephens, Hsq., the 
author of the Book of the Farm, says to his, 
“You must not suppose that all the prognostics 
Sees: 
WEATHER. 
of the weather enumerated here will invariably 
hold true, and that you will be as certain of re- 
cognising every phenomenon here described, as 
if you had contemplated it before you ina picture ; 
or that a great number of them can be observed 
at one time. Such certainty cannot as yet be 
attained in predicting and describing the changes 
of the atmosphere, which are generally presented 
to us again with such modifying circumstances, 
as, though the character of the kind may be 
distinctly preserved, the species or variety of the 
phenomenon may differ considerably. Still by | 
acquiring at first the leading features of these 
phenomena, you will afterwards be able, by at- 
tentive observation, to recognise most of the par- 
ticulars which go to make up their distinctive 
characters. A long-continued state of any kind 
of weather strongly influences the character of 
that which is to follow. Thus the barometer 
sometimes sinks, and even all the clouds present 
every appearance of rain, and yet no rain follows, 
and the symptoms subside, and clear weather 
returns, provided the weather had been long dry 
before. And, on the other hand, symptoms of 
drought will fail after a long continuance of wet. 
Nevertheless, these are only exceptions to the | 
general rule. Be assured that every authenti- 
cated symptom is correct, and may be regarded 
as the forerunner of its effects; and you should 
be prepared to provide against these, if the 
symptoms are injurious, although it may happen 
that the forebodings have not been realized.” 
Prognostics by Plants—Plants comprise such 
an infinity of ducts and cells and air-vessels, 
holding constant communication with the hu- 
midity and gases and heat of the atmosphere, 
that they may be regarded as delicate and com- 
plex hygrometers and thermometers, which, if 
attentively observed or accurately known, can- 
not but indicate comparatively minute changes 
in the state of the air, and therefore foretell vi- 
cissitudes in the weather. All wood, even the 
hardest and most solid, but particularly such as 
is light and dry, so readily absorbs vapour as to 
swell in moist weather; insomuch that pieces of | 
sallow dried in an oven, and inserted into drilled 
holes in the rock of quarries, have been used in 
damp weather for the same purposes as blasting, 
—the pieces of wood absorbing humidity from 
the atmosphere, swelling out like wedges, and 
rending the rock into fragments. The flowers 
of many plants open and shut, less under the 
stimulus of light, than under the action of hu- 
midity, and therefore foretell changes from dry- 
ness to rain and from rain to dryness; and those 
of some composite plants, especially, display a 
sufficient variety of phenomena under the com- 
plicated influence of the various atmospheric 
agencies as to indicate coming changes quite as 
nicely and curiously as the barometer,—and in 
consequence are popularly called the poor man’s — 
weather-glasses, 
The stem of many herbaceous plants, but par- 
