Weatherology—Vegetation—Gulf Stream

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The mild and beautiful winter weather in this section, to which we have already alluded in a former number, has continued up to the present period. In the parks and gardens, trees and shrubs have budded and thrown out leaves. Probably we shall yet have frost to cause them injury, but the spring will call them forth to bud and bloom again. Fears have been expressed regarding the killing of the winter-wheat by its exposure to frequent frosts and thaws3 it not being covered with its usual warm mantle of cold snow. We would advise our farmers to go over their wheat fields with rollers in the spring, so as to press down all the roots of the grain which may be thrown out of the soil. This practice is pursued regularly in England, where the winter seasons are similar to our present one. Our farmers should also take measures for sowing spring wheat in situations where the winter kind may be killed This surprising mild season has exercised the fancy of some of those learned pundits who are always so ready to advance reasons for things which neither themselves nor anybody else understand. They assert that the recent warm weather has been caused by the Gulf Stream flowing about fifty miles nearer our coasts than formerly, according to the reports of some sea captains. It is well known that this wonderful stream does flow nearer the coast some seasons than others, and it may be the case this winter ; but, while this would undoubtedly influence the atmosphere on the Atlantic coast, it never could affect that beyond the Alleghanies, in Canada, or the West and Northwestern regions, where the thermometer has been seldom much below the freezing point this winter, whereas it was thirty and forty degrees below it the last one. It is folly to pretend to be wise beyond actual knowledge. No person really knows why there are such variations in the seasons. Observers may yet detect causes, and science arrange the weather influences, but at present weatherology is very far from being reduced to a science.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 13 Issue 22This article was published with the title “Weatherology—Vegetation—Gulf Stream” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 13 No. 22 (), p. 173
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican02061858-173b

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