With West, North-west, and North winds, the barometer rises.
With North-east winds, the barometer ceases to rise and begins to fall.
In the Northern Hemisphere the thermometer rises with East, South-east, and South winds; with a South-west wind it ceases to rise and begins to fall; it falls with West, North-west, and North winds; and with a North-east wind it ceases to fall and begins to rise.
THE CHEMISTRY OF BOG RECLAMATION.
The mode of proceeding for the reclamation of bog-land at Kylemore is first to remove the excess of water by “the big drain and the secondary drains,” which must be cut deep enough to go right down to the gravel below. These are supplemented by the “sheep drains,” or surface-drains, which are about twenty inches wide at top, and narrow downwards to six inches at bottom. They run parallel to each other, with a space of about ten yards between, and cost one penny per six yards.
This first step having been made, the bog is left for two years, during which it drains, consolidates, and sinks somewhat. If the bog is deep, the turf, which has now become valuable by consolidation, should be cut.
After this it is left about two years longer, with the drains still open. Then the drains are cleared and deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain, which is thus made without the aid of any tiles or other outside material. The drainage is now completed, and the surface prepared for the important operation of dressing with lime, which, as the people expressively say, “boils the bog,” and converts it into a soil suitable for direct agricultural operations.
Potatoes and turnips may now be set in “lazy bed” ridges. Mr. Mitchell Henry says, “Good herbage will grow on the bog thus treated; but as much as possible should at once be put into root-crops, with farm-yard manure for potatoes and turnips. The more lime you give the better will be your crop; and treated thus there is no doubt that even during the first year land so reclaimed will yield remunerative crops.” And further, that “after being broken up a second time the land materially improves, and becomes doubly valuable.” Also that he has no doubt that “all bog-lands may be thus reclaimed, but it is uphill work, and not remunerative to attempt the reclamation of bogs that are more than four feet in depth.”
There is another and a simpler method of dealing with bogs—viz., setting them into narrow ridges; cutting broad trenches between the ridges; piling the turf cut out from these trenches into little heaps a few feet apart, burning them, and spreading the ashes over the ridges. This is rather largely practiced on the coast of Donegal, in conjunction with sea-weed manuring, and is prohibited in other parts of Ireland as prejudicial to the interests of the landlord.