634 
may, in the latter part of the month, be planted on a 
mild hotbed or in the bark-bed of a hothouse. New 
lawns or grass walks may be made; gravel walks 
ought:to be kept perfectly clean; edgings ought to be 
shaped into perfect regularity; borders, beds, and 
walks ought to receive a general spring dressing ; and 
the whole garden ought to be cleaned, dressed, and 
decorated into the finest possible order. 
APRIL. 
Phenomena.—April is usually characterized as a 
month of alternate showers and sunshine; and it 
eminently partakes of the fickleness of March, but 
has far less windiness, and more sudden and frequent 
vicissitudes. The April of many years is constantly 
showery; and that of most is more or less showery; 
yet that of a few is constantly or almost wholly fair 
and sunshiny. Some days of the April of most years 
are very warm, and others very cold; and not a few 
of even the warmest days are followed by frosty 
nights. The thermometer has a mean height of 
about 46°; it usually ranges, during the month, be- 
tween 28° and 68° ; it has been known to fall so low 
as 20°, and to rise so high in the shade as 81°; and 
it sometimes makes a range within twenty-four hours, 
or rather between 2 o’clock p.m. and midnight, of 
not less than 45°. A large proportion of the month 
is sometimes swept with keen easterly winds. The 
barometer has a mean height of 29°81, and a mean 
range of 1:25. The depth of rain, on an average of 
many years, is about 1°8; and the quantity of evapo- 
ration is about 2°2. 
The succession of the leafing of trees is a much 
more extensive and interesting subject of observation 
in April than in any other month. A few of the 
most common species of shrubs, fruit-trees, and fo- 
rest-trees, were observed by Stillingfleet to leaf in 
Norfolk as follows ;—on the Ist of April, the birch 
and the weeping willow; on the 3d, the raspberry 
and the bramble; on the 4th, the brier; on the 6th, 
the plum, the apricot, and the peach; on the 7th, the 
filbert, the sallow, and the alder; on the 9th, the 
sycamore; on the 10th, the elm and the quince; on 
the llth, the marsh-elder; on the 12th, the wych 
elm; on the 13th, the hornbeam and the quicken- 
tree; on the 14th, the apple-tree; on the 16th, the 
abele and the chestnut; on’the 18th, the ocak; on the 
| 19th, the lime; on the 2lst, the maple, the plane, 
the walnut, the beech, the robinia, and the black 
poplar; and on the 22d, the ash and the Carolina 
poplar. Around London, in the early part of the 
month, primule, open-ground hyacinths, gentianella, 
ground-ivy, evergreen candytuft, pulmonaria, and 
most fruit-shrubs and fruit-trees are in flower; in the 
middle part of the month, many robinias, kalmias, 
andromedas, rhododendrons, daphnes, and other 
shrubby plants, as well as some herbaceous plants, 
come into flower; and in the latter part of the month, 
the larch is in leaf, tulips, fritillaries, and white nar- 
cissi are in flower, ivy-berries fall, and the beech and 
the elm are in blossom. Some of the most conspicu- 
ous flowers of the month, are, in the shrubbery, la- 
burnums, cherries, almonds, lilacs, peaches, barber- 
ries, scorpion senna, cydonia, service-tree, rhododen- 
drons, andromedas, daphnes, and kalmias ; in the par- 
terre, auriculas, fritillaries, violets, dog-tooth violet, 
peeonies, primulz, jonquils, narcissi, irises, anemones, 
lychnis, fumatory, stocks, tulips, pilewort, saxi- 
frages, daisies, cretan alyssum, crown imperials, co- 
Jumbines, ornithogalums, ranunculuses, and many 
others; and in the greenhouse, carnations, pinks, 
amaryllide, correa, cactuses, cinerarias, geraniums, 
heaths, and a profusion of others, both herbaceous 
and shrubby, both forced and in their natural season. 
In the early part of April, moths appear, spiders 
abound, the trout rises, frogs spawn, tadpoles appear, 
the viper is occasionally seen, the mistletoe-thrush 
CALENDAR. 
pairs, and the stone-curlew and the pheasant utter 
their peculiar cry; in the middle part of the month, 
various well-known insects appear, the crested wren 
sings, and the hen, the duck, the pigeon, the raven, 
and the blackbird sit; and in the latter part of the 
month, the common snake is sometimes seen, the 
house-martin appears, the blackcap whistles, and the 
bittern utters its characteristic cry. But by far the 
most interesting feathered visitors of the month, 
though some of them are not seen or heard till to- 
wards the end of it, are the swallow, the wryneck, 
the whitethroat, the yellow wren, the willow wren, 
the grasshopper lark, the ring-ousel, the redstart, 
the swallow, the nightingale, and the cuckoo. 
The Farm.—April, on account of its intervening 
between the extinction of turnips and the available- 
ness of the pasture grasses, is the most difficult month 
in the year for the maintaining of live-stock, and puts 
good husbandry and the general economics of the 
farm very stringently to the test. Irrigated meadows, 
when tolerably well managed, are a chief good re- 
source; the sowing of grass lands with early grasses 
is another; the ‘‘rouen” method noticed in our ar- 
ticle on AFTERGRASS, is, in certain though limited 
circumstances, a third; and a careful keeping and 
prolonged use of hay, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and 
potatoes are a fourth. But some other methods, 
such as turning stock upon crops of wheat to feed 
them off, or allowing them to roam over pastures 
and clover fields, are miserably uneconomical, and 
occasion a very great eventual loss. Ewes and their 
lambs must be continued, from last month, wholly on 
grass. If a farm have a good breadth of irrigated 
meadow, the whole sheep stock may be fed entirely 
upon it throughout April; but if otherwise, all other 
sheep than ewes and their lambs must have a reserve 
of turnips to maintain them till the middle of the 
month, and may then be turned upon the pastures. 
Fat sheep and oxen may be freely sold for the sham- 
bles in the latter part of the month; for they usually 
bring a fully higher price at this time than at any 
other period in the year. Oxen which are worked 
in teams should be well fed with good hay, cut straw, 
and a daily allowance of roots. Horses require to 
be constantly at full work, and should be abundantly 
fed with hay, corn, and carrots. Mares often foal 
in April, and require somewhat nice attention. Colts 
of three years of age may either be now taken up and 
trained for work, or be allowed another summer’s 
grass, and taken up for training in autumn. Sows, 
pigs, and lean hogs, should be kept close within the 
farm-yards, and supplied with chaff, straw, carrots, 
parsnips, and potatoes. The young broods of poultry, 
particularly those of turkeys, now require great at- 
tention; and ought either to be so few as to be 
brought up on the common barn-door system, or so 
many as to engross the whole care and occupy the 
whole time of a poultry maid. 
Barleys not sown in March ought to be sown at 
latest by the middle of April. Pease ought all to 
have been sown before this month; yet they may 
still be sown with the expectation of a full crop, but | 
not with the certainty of being sufficiently forward 
to permit a succeeding crop of good turnips. When- 
ever, aS in the old Hertfordshire method, barley is 
sown before white oats, the latter require to be sown 
in April. An acre or half an acre of lettuce may be 
drilled in April for a large stock of hogs. When a 
succession of tares is part of the economy of a farm, 
two sowings should be made in April, the one at the 
beginning of the month, and the other towards the 
end. Thorough tilth, in preparation for madder, 
should be effected in the beginning of the month; 
and the finishing tilth, and the planting of the crop 
itself, should be effected towards the end. April is 
the time for the sowing of teasel, the sowing of lu- 
cerne, and the sowing of burnet; and it is also not 
f 
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