a fruit at once so worthless as a nutriment, and yet so pleasantly contributing to human comfort, as the cranberry. Its more general and cheap culture ought certainly to command the attention of shrewd

men.

MELONS.

The history of the watermelon, so much esteemed for its sweet, delicious, and cooling juice, as well as that of the muskmelon, or canteleup, which is equally prized for its rich aromatic pulp, may be traced back to remote antiquity. The former, which is generally considered as the melon of the Jews, mentioned in various places in the Bible, is believed to have originated in Egypt or Southern India, where it has been cultivated from time immemorial. It would appear that it was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, as no definite information respecting it can be gleaned from their authors. The muskmelon, which is represented to have been a native of Asia, was known to the Greek and Roman physicians, and its properties and uses described by them at length.

The kind of muskmelon most esteemed among amateurs in various parts of Europe, and described, is the "Canteleup," so called from a place about fourteen miles from Rome, the country seat of the Pope, where this fruit has long been cultivated. This variety is stated to have been brought thither from that part of Armenia which borders on Persia, where it grows in the greatest perfection and abundance. The flesh of this melon, when fully matured, is delicious, and may be eaten with safety, without injury to the dyspeptic or those of the weakest stomachs. The form of canteleups is generally roundish, with a rough, warty, or netted outer rind, or skin. The size of the plant is rather small, and the flesh for the most part of a yellowish color, though with some it is green.

CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

Statement of HEMAN POWERS, of Lewiston, Niagara county, New York. For two years past, my method of cultivating melons has been, first to plant the seed on inverted sods of good thickness and size, in a hotbed, in the month of April, and transplant them, sod and all, early in June. In this way the plants will take an early start, and are removed to the garden or field without retarding their growth by disturbing the

roots.

In a similar manner, cucumbers, tomatoes, or other plants, may be accelerated in their growth several weeks.

Statement of CHAUNCEY E. GOODRICH, of Utica, Oneida county, New York.

The Green-fleshed variety of melon usually matures well here, if planted in hot-beds about the 15th of April, and carefully removed to the open ground the 10th of June. This is the most economical plan for the market gardener. The private gentleman, however, should make a small hot-bed for each hill, much earlier, from which the plants should never be removed. The melon may always be plucked in seventeen weeks after planting, with proper culture and the ordinary season. In a long, dry, and warm season, this edible fruit may often be finally matured here in perfectly open culture. This melon, as produced here, is said by travellers to be superior to those usually seen in the West Indies, or on the coast of South America. This is obviously due to superior culture, and not to soil and climate.

Considering that the melon may be so readily and cheaply raised in this climate, and that its best varieties are equal or superior to the peach, which cannot be produced here, it seems very desirable that it should be more generally cultivated, especially that it should supplant the old "Yellow Muskmelon." It should be generally known that surplus plants of this melon when pulled out of the hill, carelessly even, may be transplanted almost with the safety and certainty of cabbage plants. Great care in sheltering the plant until it roots again, is of course needful. This part I have often verified. Cucumbers may be similarly transplanted; but, unlike the melon, they subsequently thrive slowly, and fruit very late. Our August market is flooded with this melon, brought from New Jersey; but it is never good, being necessarily picked prematurely, and bruised in transportation.

Our watermelons have a tender foliage, which is more readily destroyed by cold and wet weather than that of the Green-fleshed melon, which attains a large size, often exceeding 30 pounds. The best mode for open culture is to plant directly upon fresh green sward, recently inverted by the plough. I have twice raised heavy crops of late years in this way, at a very trivial expense. The culture in this case is of the simplest kind. The great discouragement with us in the culture of this melon, is the carliness and cheapness with which it is brought from the South.

CLIMATOLOGY.

U. S. PATENT OFFICE, June 19, 1854.

SIR: We should be glad to append to the Agricultural Report of the Patent Office, about to be published, a paper on the climatology of the United States, compared with that of Europe and other parts of the world, as far as practicable.

Such a paper is understood to be in existence; but as some of its most important materials, so far as regards American climatology, have been collected through the instrumentality of the Smithsonian Institution, they ought first to be given to the world through the reports of that Institution.

In view, however, of the great benefits that would result from an early publication of the above-mentioned paper in our report, I am induced to request of you the special favor of allowing it to be thus published, in anticipation of the appearance of those materials among the proceedings of the Smithsonian Institution.

I hope you will feel that a greater amount of benefit will thus be conferred upon the public than by delaying the publication till some subsequent period, which, I trust, will be a sufficient reason for grant ing this request.

Prof. JOSEPH HENRY,

Yours truly,

CHARLES MASON, Commissioner

Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,

Washington, D. C.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,

June 21, 1854.

SIR: The meteorological materials mentioned in your letter of the 19th instant were collected under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, the board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, and the Medical Bureau of the army of the United States; and, in consideration of the claims of these parties, they ought first to be published in a general report under their sanction.

It is only in this way that due credit can be secured to all the institutions and individuals who have contributed to the collection; but, since the paper you mention has been prepared, and you propose to give it an immediate and wide circulation through the Report of the Patent Office, I do not consider myself at liberty, in behalf of the parties interested, to object to its publication.

I have the honor to remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant, JOSEPH HENRY, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Hon. CHARLES MASON,
Commissioner of Patents.

AGRICULTURAL CLIMATOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES COMPARED WITH THAT OF OTHER PARTS OF THE GLOBE.

BY LORIN BLODGET.

The purpose in which this sketch of agricultural climatology was undertaken, was a doubtful or contingent one, designed to occupy such space only as should be found convenient to assign to the subject in connexion with the regular report of the agricultural department of the Patent Office. But in the preparation of the matter it was found better to take a more general view of the peculiar characteristics of American agricultural climatology as a preliminary step, and to make some general comparisons as a basis for treating any specific branch satisfactorily. A hasty general sketch and comparison of this with the Eastern continent was thus entered upon, and although now falling far short of the completeness desirable on that point, it is sufficiently complete, perhaps, for the purposes subsequently considered.

In entering upon a specific climatology, also, the basis of comparison appeared quite imperfect as found in other climatologies. The temperature measures indicated as the limits of, or as the more favorable conditions for, particular plants are frequently quite inapplicable to our own climate, and they are evidently quite vague even for Europe. Each seemed to deserve a new discussion by the aid of the light a new continent could throw on these more fixed relations; and though the labor of completing these several discussions was quite too great for the present time and place, some approach to that thorough treatment seemed necessary if an intelligible statement were made at all in this connexion. The statistics have therefore been employed in this direct association with some special single illustration, or some particular staple, and they have been made as fully illustrative of that particular point as was both possible and desirable.

In such a plan many products and many features of an agricultural climatology must remain unnoticed, unless considerable space be given the work. For the space available here, it seemed better to take the more prominent staples of cultivation, and the more prominent points in such a climatology, and treat them somewhat at length. Subsequently, opportunity may offer for extending and completing the analysis, if the present mode shall be found adapted to its purpose as far as it may go.

General character of the climate of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and its comparison with the cli nates, of the same latitudes, of the Eastern continent.

The principal conditions of climate, or those of temperature and amount of rain at least, have been very fully and accurately observed

in the United States for a considerable period. For the time of its occupation, indeed, no country has been more fully observed, as all definite instrumental observation dates only from quite recent times. The mercurial thermometer was first introduced in 1720, and it was probably invented near that date, though some writers have referred to its use a few years earlier. Some years still earlier, the spirit thermometer was employed with a rude measure of accuracy, and for some of the dates about 1720, it is difficult to say which instrument was in use. The best series of thermometrical observations in Europe begin some years later, or about 1730, and one only at the date here given, that at Berlin in 1719. In the United States, the earliest recorded observations were at Charleston in 1738, but this record embraces only brief and detached periods of a few years each. At Cambridge, the first was in 1742, and valuable summaries embrace the whole subsequent period, with detailed means for the several months and years from 1770. At Philadelphia, the earliest that remain were in 1748-49, recommencing in 1758, and but little interrupted from that time forward. At Williamsburg, Virginia, observations commence in 1776, and embrace some valuable series, though not quite continuous from that date.

Generally, every important portion of the country possesses comparable series for the last thirty years, and there are several continuous series, not named above, of more than forty years.

Our climatology in temperature may, therefore, be quite complete for the period of our occupation of the territory, and we may adapt its results more directly to our want in the various requirements of practical knowledge of climate than has ever been done in Europe. Long and wasteful processes of experimenting upon the adaptation of climate to the various requirements of civilized life, were undergone by all the nations of the Old World in the course of the changes through which they have passed in emerging from barbarism. On the contrary, we may occupy a vast continent with definite measures of every condition of its climate at hand, and with full knowledge of the climatic requirement of the cultivation or the animal life we would introduce.

Precise determinations came last in Europe, or after experiment had decided what was practicable and what was not. Here we may use the known relations of climate to cultivation and animal life, as experiment and science have both determined them there, in entering upon the occupation of new districts, and in deciding what to attempt and what to avoid. For the first century, or perhaps more, of occupation by colonies in America, the losses and disasters were immense from this want of definite knowledge of the capacities and deficiencies of climate. They have continued to some extent until the present time, but they may now wholly cease, if we will but use the materials we have at hand.

In the outline of comparative climatology here proposed, it is designed to present the more striking facts and results of this description, and to show what precise conditions of climate have been found, in our

*The mercurial thermometer was used by the Italian philosopher Renaldini, as early as 1694, who proposed the method of graduating the instrument between the freezing and boiling points of water. The mercurial thermometer was also used by Roemer, of Dantzic, before the year 1709. D. J. B.