Note 49 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 2)

The nights are very dark here all the summer; and in winter, they are quite as dark, if not darker, than the winter nights in Sweden; for here is no kind of Aurora Borealis, and the stars give a very faint light. It is very remarkable if an Aurora Borealis appears once or twice a year. The winters here bring no snow, to make the nights clear, and to make travelling more safe and easy. The cold is, however, frequently as intense as in Old Sweden. The snow which falls lies only a few days, and always goes off with a great deal of wet. The Rattle-snakes, Horned-snakes, red-bellied, green, and other poisonous Snakes, against whose bite there is frequently no remedy, are in great plenty here. To these I must add the wood-lice, with which the forests are so pestered, that it is impossible to pass through a bush without having a whole army of them on your cloaths, or to sit down, though the place be ever so pleasant. The inconvenience and trouble they cause, both to man and beast, I have described in the Memoirs of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The weather is so inconstant here, that when a day is most excessively hot, the next is often sensibly cold. This sudden change often happens in one day; and few people can suffer these changes, without impairing their health. The heat in summer is excessive, and the cold in winter often very piercing. However, one can always secure one’s self against the cold; but when the great heat is of any duration, there is hardly any remedy against it. It tires one so, that one does not know which way to turn. It has frequently happened, that people who walked into the fields, dropped down dead, on account of the violence of the heat. Several distempers prevail here; and they increase every year. Nobody is left unattacked by the intermitting fever; and many people are forced to suffer it every year, together with other diseases. Pease cannot be sown, on account of the insects which consume them49. There are worms in the grains of rye, and numbers of them are in the cherry-trees. The caterpillars often eat all the leaves from the trees, so that they cannot bear fruit in that year; and numbers die every year, both of fruit-trees and forest-trees. The grass in the meadows is likewise consumed by a kind of worms, and another species cause the plumbs to drop, before they are half ripe. The oak here affords not near so good timber as the European oak. The fences cannot stand above eighteen years. The houses are of no long duration. The meadows are poor, and what grass they have is bad. The pasture for cattle in the forests, consists of such plants as they do not like, and which they are compelled to eat by necessity; for it is difficult to find a single grass in great forests, where the trees stand far asunder, and where the soil is excellent. For this reason, the cattle are forced, during almost the whole winter and part of the summer, to live upon the young shoots and branches of trees, which sometimes have no leaves: therefore, the cows give very little milk, and decrease in size every generation. The houses are extremely unfit for winter habitations. Hurricanes are frequent, which overthrow trees, carry away roofs, and sometimes houses, and do a great deal of damage. Some of these inconveniencies might be remedied by art; but others will either admit of no alteration, or they will at least cost vast trouble. Thus every country has its advantages, and its defects: happy is he who can content himself with his own.