THE COLD SPELL.

The cold weather of last week seems to have extended over nearly the entire North American Continent. Nothing for severity has been known to equal it during a long series of years. East, West, North, and South it was all the same, differing in degree of course, but uniformly colder than scarce ever known in the same latitude.

The greatest loss to stock so far as heard from was in that in transit to market. On some of the roads the losses were heavy. A dispatch from Independence, Mo., says a train of fifteen cars, loaded with mules from Texas via the Iron Mountain and Southern road, arrived there on the 5th, when it was discovered that at least 100 of the mules had frozen to death, and the others were in a freezing condition. The mules were two years old and direct from grass. They had been three days without food.

Many trains arriving at Chicago had scores of frozen animals.

No great disaster is yet reported from the far West or from Minnesota and Dakota. Still there must have been great suffering not only among the dumb brutes, but among human beings as well. It is fortunate that polar waves do not visit us more frequently.

The effect upon fruit, buds, trees, and shrubs is not yet ascertained. It will be a marvel if many localities are not barren of fruit of nearly all kinds next year.

The Prairie Farmer will be very glad if its readers will favor it with their ideas and the results of their observations in regard to the damage of all sorts done by the intense cold of the first week of the year.