Connecticut western news., 1874-08-07

Home Again.-Well, here we are again. After an absence from our readers of a few weeks, on our "Little sail down the bay," we feel refreshed by the invigorating breath of old Neptune, and quite prepared to re turn and buckle on the armor, Quill, scis- sors and paste pot,) and renew our efforts in the interest of Western Connecticut. Having for many years passion to cross the Atlantic, and to realize fully the TO- nance, grandeur and magnitude of the ocean, we determined to embrace favora- ble opportunity for doing so, and take to ourself a bit of vacation for that purpose; consequently in June we left the Hand of the Free" in one of the steamers of the new State Line company, the ''State of Penn sylvania," bound for Glasgow in Scotland. [We'll improve the opportunity to say right here that we succeeded admirably in real izlng the romance of the ocean, and when only few days out became fully persua- ded that we could get along pretty we'll hereafter if we didn't happen to have much more of that kind of romance. Like the man who ate the crow we "Didn't banker after it.''] Although our stay on the other side was, as business at home demanded it should be, short, (not quite three weeks, ) it was sufficiently long to enable us to visit Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland, and thence down to Penrith, Keswick, the Eng fish lakes, Wende1mere, Birmingham, r
 Liverpool, Belfast, Giants Causeway, and the north of Ireland generally. In all these places we visited the principal objects of interest in London spending more time than at any other one place, giving special attention to our visits to London Tower, the British" Museum, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, as we'll as many oth- CT places there which our letters hereafter will more fully describe. It was our pur- pose to run across into Paris and spend a week, but finding it would conflict with oth- CT plans made by us, we concluded to leave that part of the programme till our next ''sail down the bay" During our absence THE NEWS has been conducted by our friend, Dr. B. s. Thompson, and to him, as we'll as to those who had charge of oth- CT departments of the business, arc we deeply indebted for the correct and very satisfactory manner in which they have performed their work.
 This Season of Rain.-Mr. Editor. Throughout the valley of the Housatonic river, especially in the towns of Salisbury, Canaan and Sheffield and in and on all oth- CT wet lands and meadows scarcely half of the usual quantity of grass or hay has been grown this year, which is the effect of the rain storms since the first of last May. In some localities sections of some meadows are completely covered with gravel and earth deposited by the floods, and are now as unproductive as the alkaline plains of the west, and most of the hay obtained is cut under great difficulties, even by horse power, in consequence of its gritty state and the quality is much impaired by the dust and grit still adhering to it ln spite of the hay tedder, pitchforks, &c.,, and such hay must be very distasteful to farm stock next winter if not absolutely hurtful But the effects of the rains are directly to the reverse on all uplands or localities where the water table Gas geologisls term iD is suf ficiently beneath the surface. On most oi such lands the great yield of grass and hay is almost without parallel, showing what has been claimed by some farmers that the grass crop while growing can scarcely be watered too much on such localities, and il is here that our best qualities of hay are ob tained, and here lies the great secret of un. derdraining, towit: Lowering of the water table and grass lands are seldom injured by excess of water on the surface. On all such up-lands the beneficial effects of the rains are observed in the growth of all ce- real crops except corn, which is easily in jured by excess of moisture during the two first months of its growth. The invigor ating effects are even seen in our upland forests, hillsides and mountain tops. Sel- dow have our trees and even shrubbery or such localities shown such profuse foliage and such dense shade; every twig presents cluster of leaves, and every leaf is eX. banded beyond those of former years; al seed and nut bearing trees arc showing cvi dence of producing immensely. The white blossom of the chestnut is noticed even oI sprouts of a few years growth, and on al the larger trees in great profusion. The ex- tension of this years growth of sprouts
 and timber far exceeds that of last year a the same time, but in all low and natura wet lands the effects are probably in a re- verse proportion. WETAue.