The northern tribune. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1847-1855, 1848-02-14
IS Snow Useful to Farmers.


Numerous farmers are strongly impressed
with the idea that lands are injured by lying
bare through the winter, and that good
| covering of snow is a forerunner OF fruitful
season. 1t is probable that this impression or
notion has its foundation in long experience |;
though 1t is not very obvious to all that snow
Is OF much services before it melts, unless it
is wanted in the highways to save the use OF
wheels.
We may be permitted, therefore, to specu-
late and theorize a little on this subject with
out tear OF being opposed by any known facts,
OF conclusive experiments. 5 ows in the
months OF April and May are called the poor
mans manure. They fall gently on the
earth, compared with showers of rain, and
they are not in such haste to run away into
hoilows and cutters as rain from a sudden
thunder cloud.
Here we may conclude, without a great
stretch of the imagination, that SHOWS are
better than rains. For showers of rain beat
the plough ground down, and leave it heavy,
and then hasten into cutters, and leave the
high knobs without enough to slake their
thirst we have now two arguments for snow
in preference to rain.
A third argument is that as we shall proba-
BILE have much rain in winter when there is
but little snow. and rain, too on ground that
is not mud frozen on the surface at the time
OF its coming, the sell is washed down from
the highlands into vallies and into streams,
where it is often useless to the owner, and
the loss of which is serious detriment to his
farm.
When the ground is covered with deep
SHOWS in winter, all the rich PARTICLES of the
farm remain as they were before winter and
nr1 thn pf In in, cnrip fha
earth becomes saturated with sufficient water,
though none may fall from the clouds.
1t is often suggested by farmers that the
soil is I'M ured by hard freezing, and that this
is reason for wishing it to be covered we'll
with snow, as snow is known to protect it
and to prevent its being frozen very hard
But we cannot assent to this theory we
have never seen any evidence to prove that
soil which escapes freezing is better than soil
which has been frozen deep through the winter.
On the contrary, we incline to think that
hard freezing is quite useful to grass fields, it
to no others. All know that grass fields need
to be stirred up once in few years, or they
become tight bound, and yield but half crop,
In the operations of freezing and thawing,
every particle may be supposed to be loosened
and to change position. Thus we see the
grass more ready to start in the spring of the
year than in the fall when the temperature
is the same subterranean narrowing has
taken place. ard new life is impaired by
change of the particles.
Those of our readers who are better pleased
with facts than with theories, are invited to
inquire whether lands that are annually frozen
are not better for grass than lands that never
feel the winter frost-whether the New
England States do not produce more hay, acre
for acre, than the Carolinas and other countries
warm as they.
Hay has been shipped the las. year from
Maine to Mexico-from Bangor to Vera Cruz.
And it is annually carried from our most
Northern States to those farthest South
The great Mississippi cannot bear enough on
her waters to supply New Orleans, and States
that have the longest winters and need the
most hay have to furnish that article annual
ly to our southern cities.
Thus we may see how Providence takes care
of all. Cold weather and frost are made use
of to render more productive those climes that
have most need of great supplies of fodder
through our long winters. These, in addition
to the hardness which labor imparts, enable
US to spare of our abundance to those who
would seem to need nothing of this kind from
our stores.-Mass. Ploughnsan.