The effects of atmospheric changes upon vegetation have been noticed in the rudest ages: even the simplest people have remarked their influence on the appetites of their cattle, so that to “eat like a rabbit before rain” has become proverbial, from the common observance of the fact: but the influence of the electric fluid upon the common herbage has not been, perhaps, so generally perceived. My men complain to-day that they cannot mow, that they “cannot any how make a hand of it,” as the grass hangs about the blade of the scythe, and is become tough and woolly; heavy rains are falling to the southward, and thunder rolls around us; this indicates the electric state of the air, and points out the influence that atmospheric temperature and condition have upon organized and unorganized bodies, though from their nature not always manifested, all terrestrial substances being replete with electric matter. In the case here mentioned, it appears probable that the state of the air induced a temporary degree of moisture to arise from the earth, or to be given out by the air, and that this moisture conducted the electric fluid to the vegetation of the field. Experiments prove that electric matter discharged into a vegetable withers and destroys it; and it appeared to me at the time, but I am no electrician, that an inferior or natural portion of this fluid, such as was then circulating around, had influenced my grass in a lower degree, so as not to wither, but to cause it to flag, and become tough, or, as they call it in some counties, to “wilt;”[70] the farina of the grass appeared damper than is usual, by its hanging about the blades of the scythes more than it commonly does; the stone removed it, as the men whetted them, just at the edge, but they were soon clogged again. As the thunder cleared away, the impediments became less obvious, and by degrees the difficulties ceased. The observance of local facts, though unimportant in themselves, may at times elucidate perplexities, or strengthen conclusions.