Temperature of the Soil During Winter

Abstract

THE French physicists, Edmond and Henry Becquerel, took advantage of the intense cold prevailing at Paris last December, to study the changes in temperature below the surface of the soil under various conditions. It is a widely-spread belief among farmers, that when protected by a layer of snow, crops sown in the autumn are effectually guarded against freezing. This opinion, however, must lose much of its weight in view of these late observations, which we will briefly summarise.