frequent and excessive for two or three months, and the creeks and streams have been so extraordinarily high, that intercommunication has been nearly cut off. We have heard that several mills have been swept away, and many farmers have not yet planted their corn. As for those on the river, they have nothing ahead but the prospect of an overflow, or actual ones where the land is low.”

In the northern section of our country, for the most part, the earliest period of the summer was favorable. In Iowa, however, we find mention of an immense quantity of rain in June. Such was the case in Illinois and parts of Indiana and Missouri, by which the Mississippi and its branches were much raised, and vast injury done. Large tracts of country on the Mississippi and its branches had their crops destroyed by the overflow. In some parts of the South, the rains were likewise severe, while in other parts the drought exerted a withering influence. Thus it is said

"Parish of De Soto, August 30, 1841.-It is impossible to give you any thing like a correct account of the loss occasioned to the cotton planters here by the late severe seven weeks' drought. To my knowledge, crops in this immediate vicinity are reduced from 1,200 to 550, and even 400 pounds weight per acre, owing to the plant shedding the bolls; and it is too late in the season now for new growth to mature and yield. The products of cotton in the three parishes of De Soto, Natchitoches, and Caddo, taken collectively, are cut short nearly one-half." Again, at

Cheraw, South Carolina.-" This present month of July will be noted for intense heat and protracted drought. The surrounding country has suffered incalculably for the want of rain. The corn crop is materially affected, and even cotton, which up to within a few days promised a most abundant yield, has commenced shedding its bolls to an almost incredible length."

Dr. Cloud, of Alabama, says: "We experienced a most injurious drought in the early part of summer, which we supposed for a while had cut off the crops one-half."

In some parts of the country, in July, the pastures and crops suffered from heat. Thus, a letter from Philadelphia of the 16th, says: "In riding 50 miles in the country, we noticed the pastures drying up in every direction, &c. Towards the latter part of summer, in the months of August and September, especially of September, we find great complaint of a most extensive drought along the whole Atlantic coast. Considerable streams were dried up, and great fears were entertained for some important crops." Notices like the following are frequent:

The Bangor (Maine) Courier says: "We learn that in some of the interior towns of this county the drought is quite severe, many of the springs and brooks being dried up, and the cattle suffering.'

The Farmers' Monthly Visiter, of September 30, published in Concord, New Hampshire, says: "The month of September has been both dry and hot. Indeed, there has been very little rain since July; and for the last twenty days the streams have been dried up, the springs and wells below the surface have failed, and the earth has become like powder for several inches." Again, a Boston paper says:

"Dry weather has now continued several weeks, and vegetation is withered and parched, and our wells and cisterns are getting low, while butter and other necessaries of life are getting high. The streets and roads in the vicinity of Boston are enveloped in clouds of dust. Grapes are be

coming prematurely ripe, and the hills and rivers in the interior are almost dried up, which of course diminishes the power of the water, and checks the speed and puts a full stop to many mechanical and manufacturing operations."

The Albany Argus says: "The country in this vicinity begins to be fairly baked with drought. Springs are so far dried up in the back towns in this county, that farmers are compelled to go half a mile to water their cattle. This drought exceeds any thing we have had since the summer of 1841. As might be anticipated, the river is very low; the weather also continues very warm."

In a Rochester paper is the following description: "We are in the midst of an unparalleled drought. The earth in city and country is as dry as a powder house. Vegetation of all kinds looks as though it had been hissed by fire. We have had but two or three showers during the last four or five weeks, and they were light. The bed of the Genesee is nearly bare, and most of our mills are idle for want of water. Many of the wells in the city are dry, and all of them are unusually low. Our principal public houses are not only obliged to go over a mile for every drop of water they use for cooking and drinking, but have to pay for it by the barrel.

"Many of our farmers have already sown their wheat, but the seed will be a long time in germinating, unless we are favored with rain. The warm weather has hastened the ripening of corn, which is now entirely out of danger from the frost."

"The protracted drought under which the country is suffering has so dried the streams that the mills at Paterson have not, for the last few weeks, run at more than half speed, and one or two had to stop entirely for want of water. The Paterson Intelligencer states that the quantity of water in the Passaic is less at present than it has been since 1819. Not a drop has passed over the falls for some time. Little or no business is done on the Morris canal, for want of water."-Newark Daily Advertiser.

"We learn that, so great has been the drought in the interior, that some of the transportation lines to Pittsburg have stopped running their boats until the canals are replenished with water. The Schuylkill, at Fairmount, is now lower than it has previously been since the dam was constructed.". Philadelphia North American.

"The surrounding country," says the Philadelphia Ledger, "is suffering severely from the long-continued dry weather. At Tinecum, but a short distance below the city, it is said that not a drop of rain has fallen for the last three months."

The Alexandria Gazette says: "The drought is most excessive and injurious. A ride across the country, on Thursday last, in Maryland, from the Potomac to the Patuxent, gave us an idea of what actual suffering there is on account of the want of rain. Nothing like it has been seen in this section for many years, if at all."

The Richmond Compiler says: "No rain yet in this section of the country, and we learn there is great suffering in a large section of the country between this and the Blue Ridge. It is now, we believe, a month since we had rain, or more than the merest sprinkle. Even the trees seem to be affected the foliage of many of our city trees displaying the sere and yellow leaf. During the greater part of the drought, the weather has been excessively warm, and the heat of the sun so great as to parch and blight all vegetation. Our markets exhibit the sad effects of this in a striking degree.

"The Norfolk Herald is rejoicing over a rain, which appears to have been much needed. It says the rain was very seasonable to the farmers, and has doubtless raised the water in the canal, which, owing to the almost unprecedented drought, had previously decreased so much that several vessels were detained at both ends, for want of a sufficient depth to carry them through.

"The drought above the falls, at James river, except in neighborhoods favored by partial showers, has been most afflictive and, for the period of its duration, severe beyond example. The corn crop, until it got into the roasting ear state as promising of a superabundant harvest as it could be, has been in various quarters of the great region between the head of the tide and the Blue Ridge, immensely curtailed-possibly one-half, and in many cases three-fifths, or even three-fourths; leaving it questionable if a crop, which, in July, promised to bring corn down, for the first time, to $125 per barrel, will now make bread for the country. This is more especially, according to our information, true of the south of James riverperhaps equally true of the north side, after entering, twenty miles above this, the region which Volney predicted, when he passed through it, would, one day or other, from drought, become another Arabia Deserta.

"A gentleman, who has recently been in Orange county, North Carolina, informs us that the crops between this city and Hillsborough are very indifferent, having been told by the planters on the road that scarcely half a crop will be averaged. It is attributed to the drought, which continued for several months, at a season when rain was most needed."

"The weather," says the Greenville (S. C.) Mountaineer of the 13th instant, during the past week or ten days, has been oppressively hot, dry, and sultry-the thermometer ranging from 90 to 92 degrees in the middle of nearly every day. The streets and roads are so dusty that travellers and others suffer severely from its effects. The watercourses are unusually low, and many wells and springs in the upper country have entirely failed. In fact, we have had the longest, most dry, and hottest summer experienced in twenty years. Since the first of February last, there has not been sufficient frost in this region to injure vegetation, and not rain enough thoroughly to wet the ground."

"The present drought," says the Georgetown (S. C.) Advocate, "exceeds in length of duration, and consequently severity, any that can be remembered for twenty years. Every vegetable, from the stately poplar to the lowly esculent, looks shrivelled and sapless. Late potatoes, in this region of country, will be a total failure; and whilst our Yankee providers are packing up for market those serviceable and popular roots, let them not forget to add also as many cabbages and turnips as they can spare."

A notice in a Tennessee agricultural journal, under date of September 26th, in referring to the Tennessee valley, says, of the first eight months of 1844: "January was wet beyond precedent, and more land covered with water at the end of this month than ever before known. February was dry and mild, and enabled the planter to gather much cotton that we thought could never be gotten out. March, an average month. April dry, with the exception of two light showers about the 15th, barely sufficient to bring up the cotton. May, dry and warm to the last few days; thermometer as high as 88 degrees on the 15th. June, rain every day or two through this month, which advanced the crop by the end of the month to over average size. July, dry and warm, except a day or two in the be

ginning. August, dry and hot throughout; thermometer ranged from 94 to 100 degrees. September, dry and warm to the 15th, then a good general rain, dry since to date."

From the following extract, it would appear that the quantity of rain which fell throughout the summer of 1844 was not quite two thirds of the mean, and but little more, it is said, than one-half of the five preceding summers: "A writer in the Providence Journal gives a table showing the quantity of rain that has fallen in each of the last thirteen years, between the 21st of March and the 21st of September, from which it appears that the quantity this year has been only 11 inches and 55 hundreths; whereas, the mean of the whole thirteen years was 18.35. The smallest previous quantity was in 1836, 11.69; the greatest in 1834, 25.32. "The mean quantity for the whole of the thirteen years was 36.85, the greatest being in 1843, when the whole year gave 42.40, and the least in 1835, when the amount was 30.06. The quantity fallen so far in this year (1844) has been only 21.45."

Happily, however, the evil resulting from the drought, though severe, did not ultimately prove so great as was anticipated. Yet there was, no doubt, a very considerable degree of loss. The tobacco crop, corn crop, and some others, were lessered from what they would have been on this account. The potato crop, too, may have been very sensibly affected by it, and possibly the disease which has been so destructive of this crop in portions of our country, and which will be fully considered in its place, may be in a great degree attributed, in the circuinstances in which it oc curred, to this cause.

Comparatively less damage has been experienced from insects than has often been the case.

The weevil, which sometimes has been very destructive, seems to have somewhat disappeared in certain regions.

On the other hand, some new insects have been noticed, as will be seen by allusions under the respective crops.

The fly, which is the most threatening enemy of the whole crop, still continues to commit its ravages, though perhaps more confined in its range during this year than the previous one.

It is said to be a fact, and it is not a little curious, that insects destructive of the crops proceed from the northeast to the west and south. Such has been the case of the Hessian fly and the weevil.

Myriads of locusts are mentioned as having been seen in the early part of the summer in Wisconsin. No serious damage, however, appears to have been experienced from them.

The rust has been less injurious also than during the former year, though, as may be seen under the proper head of the grain, in some scctions the crops suffered from its ravages.

WHEAT.

The greater portion of this important crop is raised by some ten or a dozen States. In two of the States or Territories this produc scarcely deserves mention. In one of the New England States, also, the amount is comparatively trifling.

Ohio takes the lead of all in the wheat crop, then follow New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, &c.

Out of a mass of materials relating to this grain, we have selected the following records of the progress of the wheat crop :

From all accounts, in the great wheat-growing States, the country over, there was an immense breadth of land sown; and had it all ripened, and if it had been gathered, the crop would have been probably superior to that of any former year.

Little injury, in comparison to that of some years, was sustained by its being winter-killed, and the spring in many sections opened with fair promise.

As early as the 17th of May, we find the following statement respecting the crop in Ohio, within the vicinity of Cincinnati:

"From inquiries which we have been making for a couple of weeks past, we are led to believe that the crops of grain within a circle of sixty to seventy miles around Cincinnati have very seldom if ever promised more abundant yields at this season of the year than they do now.

"Generally, the wheat crop looks healthy, and is of most luxuriant growth. In the great Miami valley we are informed this is particularly the case, and similar statements have been published respecting the Mad river country. We learn from a gentleman from Middletown, well informed in all such matters, that in the large rich farms of Butler county about one-third more wheat was put in last fall than the year before-and this without at all trenching upon the strong corn lands of the bottoms, which will be given as usual to the production of food for pork. The wheat looks extremely well, and is as yet free from every manner of disease or vermin."

In another part of the State, the account under the same date is not equally favorable:

"May. We regret to learn that this staple crop, which during the early part of the season promised so fairly, is now suffering considerably from the ravages of the fly. This is said to be the case in the Buck creek settlement. We have heard of three fields adjoining, the middle one of which remains uninjured, while the other two have been destroyed. Where such facts are noticed, it would be well to institute an investigation into the cause of the difference, and furnish the result for publication." A month later, the wheat crop in many parts appears not to be equally promising.

Thus it is said, early in June:

"The grain crops throughout this and the adjoining counties promise an abundant harvest, though injured in places by the flies; yet, we understand that there will be more than an average crop."-Miami of the Lake, at Perrysburg.

"The fly is certainly making much greater ravages than we anticipated. Never has this section experienced so great destruction from the fly before." Whole fields are entirely destroyed. How much it will affect the aggregate crop is difficult to say. The quantity on the ground is doubtless greater than any former year."-Massillon Gazette.

The Sydney (Ohio) Aurora says: "Wheat has not looked better here for many years. The great danger apprehended is, that the forward state of the crop and the wet weather will cause the wheat' to fall before it is ready for harvesting."

"Chillicothe, June 17, 1844.-It has rained almost incessantly for the last six days. The wheat is prostrated, and the rust is taking it. With all