air, are chief means of supporting healthy plants, 
and bringing them to perfection ; and when these 
are prevented, either by a prolonged calm, by the 
great height of hedges, or by overshadowing 
| woods, the plants unduly retain the moisture of 
dews and rains, want the requisite degree of mo- 
tion or exercise for the maintenance of their 
vigour, and, in consequence, become weak, dwarf- 
ish, or diseased.—Much variableness of weather, 
particularly in great and frequent transitions of 
temperature, damages the tender organs of plants 
by alternate expansion from heat and contraction 
from cold, and sometimes engenders diseases 
which completely perplex the farmer as to both 
their nature and their cause-—Various worms 
and minute flies often inflict enormous damage ; 
but they will be noticed under the words Grup, 
Wueat-Fiy, and numerous others indicated in 
the article Insucts.—Sparrows, pigeons, crows, 
game, rats, mice, and other birds and vermin, 
often prey largely upon crops when they are 
ripening, or while they are winnowing in the 
| field, and after they are secured in the stack-yard 
and the granary; but these also will be noticed 
| in various articles, under their appropriate head- 
| ings.—The hazards to which crops are liable, and 
| the accidental losses which a farmer may sustain, 
| are thus more numerous and far more serious 
than a superficial observer would suppose; yet 
many or even most of them may be much allevi- 
ated or wholly prevented or repaired by foresight, 
skill, and the operations and appliances of en- 
| lightened husbandry. The proportion of dam- 
| age ultimately sustained from accidents by a 
thoroughly good farmer on a properly condi- 
| tioned farm of the nineteenth century, is little 
more than a trifle in comparison to the average 
amount of damage sustained by almost any kind 
of farmer of the middle ages of Europe. 
ACCLIMATATION or ACCLIMATION OF 
ANIMALS. The enabling of the domestic animals 
to sustain, without serious injury, a great change 
of climate. In removing oxen, for example, from 
the climate of Kentucky or of Tennessee to that of 
Louisiana in America, farmers and cattle-dealers 
have long known that the most serious risk is in- 
curred, and have been in the practice of earnestly 
using means—many of them absurd and caprici- 
ous—for averting or lessening the risk. The 
average pulse of the ox in a cold climate is 
about 50 in a minute, while its average in the 
climate of Louisiana is from 68 to 75; so that, 
| when any individual of the species is removed 
_ from its native country toa place of considerably 
| higher temperature, the action of its heart is 
| powerfully stimulated, and its whole constitution 
undergoes a violent change. The injury done to 
any animal by a sudden, great, and permanent 
increase of the circulation must necessarily be 
serious; but, in consequence of its arteries being 
smaller in proportion than those of the ox and of 
some other animals, it is particularly serious to 
| the ox. The proper treatment for averting 
ACCLIMATATION OF ANIMALS. 
danger, or duly acclimating the creature, is a 
gradual, steady, and considerable reduction of its 
animal energy. Dr. James Smith of Louisiana, 
in a paper on this subject in the Quart. Journ. 
of Agriculture, says:—“The quantity of food 
which the system will in ordinary circumstances 
require must be diminished, and all the common 
exciting causes of increased arterial action, such 
as the heat of the sun, quick motion of any kind, 
be avoided. Besides these, medicines which have 
a tendency to diminish the heart’s action, must 
not only on the first attack of fever be resorted 
to, but should, we think, even in a state of health 
(though no advocate for such treatment gener- 
ally), from time to time be administered. Bleed- 
ing, though the most valuable of all remedies on 
the attack, must not previously be resorted to, 
from a tendency which it has to produce in the 
system increased action, for the purpose of repro- 
ducing the matter takenaway. Proper doses of the 
Digitalis purpurea (foxglove) may also be resorted 
‘to, and indeed all remedies which have a tendency 
to diminish the heart’s action. Shade, a plenti- 
ful supply of water, for the animal to stand in 
during the heat of the day, I conceive to be of 
all things the most essential.” 
Besides special cases like those now alluded 
to, the general question of the influence of cli- 
mate upon the reproduction of animals im- 
ported from foreign countries merits a high 
degree of attention from the agriculturist. In 
the same manner that vegetables, when trans- 
planted from a burning to a cold climate, mul- 
tiply but seldom and with difficulty in the or- 
dinary way, we remark that animals imported 
from avery warm to a very cold country often 
become unfruitful. It has frequently been no- 
ticed, that Arabian mares, when brought to 
Britain under different circumstances, either be- 
come unfruitful, or yield feeble and unprofit- 
able results. The stallions of many races are 
sometimes in the same situation, even when trans- 
ported to a much shorter distance. 
remarks, that the asses of Tuscany and Spain are 
not always productive in France, or in countries 
lying farther to the northward; and it is well || 
known, that in all the northern countries of || 
Europe, animals of this species yield products 
greatly inferior in appearance to those of the 
South. The other domestic animals present us 
with results which may be regarded as equiva- 
lent to the preceding, after making due allowances 
for the differences between the climate of their 
residence and that of their original country. 
Thus, we may remark that the sheep and bull 
seem rather to deteriorate on removing from the 
north to the south of Kurope; now these animals 
appear to have belonged originally to countries 
where a cold and moist atmosphere was more 
prevalent than one of an opposite character. On 
the contrary, as we have just observed, a differ- 
ent result is obtained in respect to the horse and 
ass, which were originally natives of the South. | 
— 2 <r 
M. Yvart | 
