What I know of farming:: a series of brief and plain expositions of practical agriculture as an art based upon scienceGreeley, Horace
Science
What I know of farming:: a series of brief and plain expositions of practical agriculture as an art based upon science
Greeley, Horace
Agriculture -- United States
to swallow any creed, support any party, or defer to any prejudice, as a
condition precedent to the sale of his products. Hence, I feel that it
is easier and more natural in his pursuit than in any other for a man to
work for a living, and aspire to success and consideration, without
sacrificing self-respect, compromising integrity, or ceasing to be
essentially and thoroughly a gentleman.
XXXII.
A LESSON OF TO-DAY.
The current season is quite commonly characterized as the coldest, the
hottest, the wettest, or the dryest, that was ever known. Men
undoubtingly assert that they never knew a Summer so hot, or a Winter so
cold, when in fact several such have occurred within the cycle of their
experience. Hardly anything else is so easily or so speedily forgotten
as extremes of temperature or inclemencies of weather, after they have
passed away. I presume there have been six to ten Summers, since the
beginning of this century, as hot and as dry as that of 1870; yet the
fact remains that, throughout the Eastern section of our country, to say
nothing of the rest, the heat and drouth of the current Summer have been
quite remarkable. For two months past, counting from the 10th of June,
nearly every day has been a hot one, with blazing sunshine throughout,
rarely interrupted and slightly modified by infrequent and inadequate
showers; and, as a general result of this tropical fervor, the earth is
parched and baked from ten to forty inches from the surface; streams
and ponds are dried up or shrunk to their lowest dimensions; forests are
often ravaged and desolated by fires; our pastures are dry and brown;
while crops of Hay, Oats, Potatoes, Buckwheat, etc., either have proved,
or certainly must prove, a disappointment to the hopes of the growers. I
estimate the average product for 1870 of the farms of New-England,
eastern New-York and New-Jersey, as not more than two-thirds of a full
harvest; while the earth remains at this moment so baked and incrusted
that several days' rain is needed to fit it for Fall plowing and the
sowing of Winter grain.
Such seasons must not be regarded as extraordinary. The Summer of 1854
was nearly or quite as dry as this; and I presume one or two such have
intervened since that time. The heat of 1870 is remarkable for its
persistence rather than its intensity. Every Summer has its heated term;
that of 1870 has been longer in this region than any before it that I
can remember, though doubtless the recollection of others might supply
its perfect counterpart. Nearly every Summer has its drouth; the present
is peculiar rather for its early commencement than its extreme duration.
As our country is more and more denuded of its primitive forests,
drouths longer and severer even than this may naturally be expected.
What our farmers have to do is, to prepare for and provide against them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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