Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — What Frost Does for Agricalture. [ARTICLE]

What Frost D oes for Agricalture.

The Ice King now rules the land with undisputed sway; and as nightly we hurry homeward through the sharp, biting air with a blue nose, benumbed fingers and tingling ears, we feel disposed to rebel against him and to consign him to his hyperborean dominions, never to return. But when we reach home we become placable; our resentment melts away before the cheerful grate, and we forgive the old fellow for the good he does to agriculture. Hoary old Winter, backed by his prime ministers, Ice and Snow, Sleet, and Rain, performs a great work in the economy of nature for which the farmer and the gardener should alike be grateful. By general consent, frost is regarded as one of the best of cultivators. Stubborn clays, which almost defy the efforts of the farmer and the gardener with all the appliances of improved implements, yield to the cleaving influences of frost or its other extreme, heat, with the docility of a child in the hands of a strong man. A clod, which the human clod who walks on the soil may try for days and weeks or months to reduce to a fine tilth without effect, is no sooner grasped by frost or sunshine, and pierced quite through, than by the first change of weather—let the first genial shower fall—and it is disintegrated and falls to pieces like so much lime or sand. Hence the philosophy of fall plowing for stiff soils. A winter’s exposure of stiff lands so treated is equivalent to a dressing of manure, and their after cultivation through the next season is greatly facilitated. To understand the action of snow and ice in the economy of nature it is necessary to understand their constituent parts. Snow is the condensed vapor of the earth precipitated to the earth in a frozen form. Snow, then, is the effect of frost acting on the vapor in the air. On the other hand, ice is froxen water, and when the temperature of the air is reduced to thirty-two degrees water will no longer remain in a fluid state. When the frost lays hold of newly-broken soil, for instance, the water that is absorbed by it during warm, moist weather expands by the action of the frost; the particles of the earth are thereby thrust apart from each other, leaving a vacuum between them. These openings in the soil let in air, dew, rain and many gases favorable to vegetation, and,more or less of fertilizing deposits being thus made,

the soil becomes invigorated and enriched, and strength is imparted to the young crops subsequently. Nor is this all, for when a thaw sets in and the ice of the clouds dissolves, the particles of the earth thrust apart by the action of the frost, being left unsupported, tumble into minute parts as soon as the binding cement of ice is dissolved. Thus a disintegrating process is wrought, and the beneficial influence of this on heavy, stiff soils cannot be over-estimated. The falling rain can more readily penetrate the soil, and the peculiar composition of water makes it a very imfiortant circumstance to vegetable life. t consists of oxygen and hydrogen, and all the solid parts of animals and plants contain these same elements in a large proportion. In the dry wood of the tree, for example, and in the dry flesh and bone of the animal, both are present. Now, as the plant and animal increase in size oxygen and hydrogen are required for the formation of their growing parts and water is everywhere at hand to supply these necessary ingredients. This is hemical duty which no other liquid but water could equally perform. Waler, in discharging tnis duty, is not merely the drink, as we usually call it, but is really part of the food both of animals and plants. Besides the oxygen and hydrogen in the water, other substances are found in the air; among them is nitric acid, and it consists of nitrogen and oxygen only. Every flash of lightning which darts across the sky and every electric spark, great or small, which in any other form passes through the air, causes a minute proportion of ;these two gases along the line of its course to unite together and produce nitric acid. This acid is very favorable to vegetable growth and is indeed one of the substances which the falling rains and dews are appointed to wash out of the air, and in doing so to bring down to the soil and to plants a valuable form of food, which is thus daily prepared for them among the winds of heaven. The disintegrating force of frost enables the substance also to penetrate the soil, where it remains stored up till required to build up vegetable tissue.

What are the uses of snow? For there is no waste of energy in the forces of nature. In the first place it may be said to keep the earth warm in time’s of severe frost; and in the second place it nourishes the mother on whose bosom it lies white and clear in winter. It is in this way that the snow may be said to keep the earth warm; it is a very bad conductor of heat, and the consequence is that where the surface of the ground is covered with snow its temperature very rarely descends below freezing point, even in cases where the superincumbent air is fifteen or twenty degrees colder. In one of the Psalms of David, the writer states, using a beautiful figure: “The Lord giveth snow like wool; He scattereth the hoar frost like ashes.” At first sight it may appear strange to compare snow to wool. That wool is warm because air is entangled among The’ fibers of the Wool, and air is a very bad conductor of heat; and also that air is entangled among the crystals of the snow, and air being a very bad conductor, there is great appropriateness in the figure. The protective quality of snow as' a means of preventing injury to plants has been abundantly illustrated. As a rule a good crop of wheat follows where the snow falls early and remains upon the ground throughout the winter. When a heavy, permanent snow melts away on the approach of spring, it discloses a picture of living vegetation which, under the genial influence of sun and rain, springs immediately into the full flush of a healthy existence. bnow is a nourisher in the sense that it supplies moisture containing carbonic acid, which penetrates slowly into the soil and insinuates itself through every clod, ridge and furrow when the snow melts. ■ Those are the master races in this world which enjoy the four seasons distinctly marked. Winter, with his frost and his snows, is one of these seasons. Let us, therefore, be indulgent to Jack Frost, for it is he who stimulates our mental and physical energies and gives us our high rank among the master races of the world.— Turf, Field and Farm.