in Thoreau’s Journal:

I watched the seeds of the milk-weed rising higher & higher till lost in the sky…. I brought home 2 of the pods which were already bursting open and amused myself from day to day with releasing the seeds & watching rise slowly into the heavens till they were lost to my eye.

No doubt the greater or less rapidity with which they rose would serve as a natural barometer to test the condition of the air.